🔗 Share this article

Could those early viewers who chuckled through the initial SpongeBob escapades have predicted the franchise persisting for a 25 years, even after absorbing the most surreal of narrative twists? This staying power is partly due to its broad appeal, tickling the funny bones of adults – perhaps even those now grown students – as well as the youngest viewers. Although it can't claim anything quite as surprising as a certain legendary David Hasselhoff cameo in the 2004 movie, this latest movie thinks nothing of having a veteran voice actor speak as a pirate while dispensing payments to stars like Barbra Streisand. It seems anything can still in the whimsical world of Bikini Bottom.

An Established Zany Groove

Starting with a festive short starring Paramount's alternative long-running babysitters, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the new SpongeBob movie soon finds a comfortably goofy rhythm. Its script serves as a family-friendly exploration on the pros and cons of maturity. This iteration of SpongeBob (again brought to life by Tom Kenny) now measures a specific height, a detail that excites him as it at last allows him to experience his fantasy coaster. (An initial, trippy gag: our enthusiastic hero's imagined loop-the-loops.) However, as in the best contemporary American animation, the real thrill ride is the corkscrew plotting.

The Adventure for Swashbuckling Credentials

SpongeBob's mission to secure the fabled pirate license that will declare him a “big guy” brings him into conflict with the ghostly Flying Dutchman, brought to life by the suddenly ever-present Mark Hamill. Although the Dutchman's ghost ship adds a larger scale, the movie's visual style remains a charming bricolage of digimation and hand-turned elements, forever highlighting satisfying, authentically cartoonish effects.

If its spitballing humor will linger when the lights come up is up for discussion, but it's a strong SpongeBob movie.

Memorable moments include SpongeBob wedging himself into an air conditioner and emerging inexplicably more rectangular than before; a cameo from a pair of chattering joke-shop false teeth; and a penalty guaranteed to resonate with the six-year-old crowd: our hero being forced into endless dishwashing.

Final Thoughts

In the end, Search for SquarePants is a solid addition to the series – and perhaps the most humorous Pirates of the Caribbean movie in years, including a hearty Davy Jones gag and a saltily innuendo-laden saying for SpongeBob's pal Patrick: “The best guys are big guys.” It's clear: those original fans will likely be chuckling anew.

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