🔗 Share this article

Would the early viewers who chuckled through the initial SpongeBob escapades have predicted the franchise enduring for a 25 years, even after absorbing the most surreal of plotlines? This staying power is in part due to its wide-ranging charm, tickling the sense of humor of adults – possibly even those now grown students – alongside the youngest viewers. While it may not feature anything as unexpected as a certain memorable David Hasselhoff appearance in the 2004 movie, this fourth feature thinks nothing of making Clancy Brown speak as a pirate while handing out payments to music icons like Barbra Streisand. This proves everything remains possible in the whimsical world of Bikini Bottom.

A Familiar Goofy Vibe

Starting with a holiday short featuring Paramount's other weathered family favorites, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the new SpongeBob movie quickly settles into a comfortably silly groove. Its script serves as a family-friendly exploration on the advantages and disadvantages of growing up. This version of SpongeBob (again brought to life by Tom Kenny) now stands a specific height, a detail that thrills him as it at last allows him to ride his dream rollercoaster. (An early, psychedelic gag: our overexcitable hero's imagined loop-the-loops.) However, like the best contemporary American cartoons, the real rollercoaster is the twisting narrative.

The Adventure for Pirate Proof

SpongeBob's quest to obtain the legendary swashbuckler certificate that will prove him a “big guy” leads him into conflict with the spectral Flying Dutchman, voiced by the currently ubiquitous Mark Hamill. Although the Dutchman's ghost ship introduces a larger scale, the film's aesthetic remains a delightful mix of digital animation and hand-crafted components, consistently highlighting satisfying, authentically cartoonish effects.

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

Memorable moments feature SpongeBob squeezing himself into an air conditioner and emerging somehow squarer than ever; a cameo from a pair of chattering novelty false teeth; and a penalty sure to delight the six-year-old audience: our hero being forced into never-ending dishwashing.

Final Thoughts

In the end, Search for SquarePants stands as a solid addition to the series – and arguably the funniest Pirates of the Caribbean movie in years, encompassing a robust Davy Jones joke and a cheekily suggestive saying for SpongeBob's friend Patrick: “The best guys are big guys.” It's clear: those original students will likely be chuckling all over again.

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.