The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants Review – An Adventurous Helping of Snicker-Inducing Fun

Could those early viewers who chuckled through the first SpongeBob escapades have envisioned the series persisting for a quarter-century, even after absorbing the most surreal of narrative twists? Such longevity is in part attributed to its wide-ranging appeal, amusing the funny bones of adults – possibly even those former students – as well as the very young viewers. Although it may not feature anything quite as unexpected as a certain memorable David Hasselhoff cameo in the 2004 movie, this latest movie has no qualms about making a veteran voice actor talk like a pirate while dispensing royalty cheques to stars like Barbra Streisand. It seems anything can still in the whimsical world of Bikini Bottom.

A Familiar Zany Groove

Starting with a festive short featuring Paramount's alternative weathered babysitters, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the new SpongeBob film soon settles into a comfortably goofy groove. Its storyline acts as a PG-rated treatise on the advantages and disadvantages of growing up. This iteration of SpongeBob (again brought to life by Tom Kenny) now stands 36 clams high, a fact that excites him as it finally allows him to experience his fantasy coaster. (An early, trippy gag: our overexcitable hero's imagined loop-the-loops.) Yet, like the finest contemporary American cartoons, the true rollercoaster is the twisting plotting.

The Adventure for Swashbuckling Credentials

SpongeBob's quest to obtain the fabled pirate license that will declare him a “big guy” leads him into conflict with the ghostly Flying Dutchman, brought to life by the currently ubiquitous Mark Hamill. Although the Dutchman's ghost ship adds a larger scale, the movie's aesthetic remains a charming bricolage of digimation and hand-turned elements, consistently highlighting satisfying, properly animated effects.

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

Notable moments include SpongeBob wedging himself into an air conditioner and coming out inexplicably 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.

The Verdict

In the end, Search for SquarePants stands as a solid entry to the franchise – and arguably the most humorous Pirates of the Caribbean movie recently, including a hearty Davy Jones joke and a cheekily innuendo-laden catchphrase for SpongeBob's pal Patrick: “The best guys are big guys.” One thing is clear: those early fans will likely be chuckling all over again.

Coming to Theaters: The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants arrives on December 19th in the US, December 20th in Ireland, and December 26th in Australia and the UK.