🔗 Share this article

Would the original fans who laughed through the first SpongeBob escapades have envisioned the franchise persisting for a quarter-century, following absorbing the most lysergic of narrative twists? Such longevity is in part attributed to its broad charm, amusing the funny bones of grown-ups – possibly even those now grown students – as well as the youngest viewers. Although it may not feature anything quite as unexpected as the legendary David Hasselhoff cameo in the 2004 film, this latest movie has no qualms about making Clancy Brown talk like a pirate while handing out payments to music icons like Barbra Streisand. It seems everything remains possible in the zany world of Bikini Bottom.

An Established Goofy Groove

Kicking off with a holiday short featuring Paramount's other long-running family favorites, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the latest SpongeBob movie soon settles into a comfortably silly rhythm. Its storyline acts as a family-friendly treatise on the advantages and disadvantages of maturity. This iteration of SpongeBob (again voiced by Tom Kenny) now stands 36 clams high, a detail that excites him as it finally allows him to experience his fantasy coaster. (An early, trippy laugh: our enthusiastic hero's imagined loop-the-loops.) Yet, like the finest modern American animation, the true rollercoaster is the corkscrew plotting.

The Adventure for Swashbuckling Credentials

SpongeBob's quest to obtain the legendary pirate license that will declare him a “big guy” brings him into conflict with the spectral Flying Dutchman, voiced by the currently ubiquitous Mark Hamill. While the Dutchman's ghost ship adds a grander scope, the film's visual style remains a charming mix of digital animation and hand-turned components, forever highlighting pleasing, properly cartoonish effects.

Whether its spitballing humor will linger when the lights come up is debatable, but it's a solid SpongeBob movie.

Notable scenes include SpongeBob squeezing himself into an AC unit and coming out somehow more rectangular than before; a brief appearance from a pair of chattering joke-shop false teeth; and a punishment sure to delight the younger audience: our hero being forced into endless dishwashing.

Final Thoughts

Ultimately, Search for SquarePants is a reliable entry to the franchise – and perhaps the most humorous Pirates of the Caribbean movie in years, encompassing a hearty Davy Jones gag and a cheekily innuendo-laden saying for SpongeBob's pal Patrick: “The best guys are big guys.” One thing is clear: those original students will likely be chuckling anew.

Release Dates: The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants arrives on 19 December in the US, 20 December in Ireland, and 26 December in Australia and the UK.