The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants Review – An Adventurous Helping of Snicker-Inducing Silliness
Would the early viewers who chuckled through the initial SpongeBob escapades have envisioned the series enduring for a 25 years, even after experiencing the most surreal of narrative twists? Such longevity is in part due to its wide-ranging appeal, amusing the funny bones of grown-ups – perhaps even those former students – alongside the youngest viewers. While it may not feature anything quite as unexpected as a certain legendary David Hasselhoff appearance in the 2004 movie, this fourth feature has no qualms about having Clancy Brown speak as a pirate while dispensing royalty cheques to music icons like Barbra Streisand. It seems anything remains possible in the zany world of Bikini Bottom.
An Established Goofy Groove
Kicking off with a holiday short featuring Paramount's alternative weathered family favorites, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the new SpongeBob film soon finds a comfortably silly rhythm. Its storyline serves as a PG-rated treatise on the advantages and disadvantages of maturity. This version of SpongeBob (again brought to life by Tom Kenny) now stands a specific height, a fact that excites him as it at last allows him to ride his fantasy coaster. (An early, psychedelic laugh: our enthusiastic hero's imagined loop-the-loops.) However, like the best contemporary American cartoons, the true rollercoaster is the twisting plotting.
The Quest for Pirate Credentials
SpongeBob's mission to secure the legendary swashbuckler certificate that will prove him a “big guy” leads him into conflict with the ghostly Flying Dutchman, voiced by the currently ever-present Mark Hamill. Although the Dutchman's ship adds a grander scope, the film's visual style remains a charming bricolage of digimation and hand-turned elements, forever highlighting satisfying, properly animated visuals.
If its spitballing silliness will resonate when the lights come up is debatable, but it's a strong SpongeBob movie.
Memorable moments feature SpongeBob squeezing himself into an AC unit and coming out inexplicably squarer than ever; a cameo from a pair of chattering joke-shop false teeth; and a punishment guaranteed to resonate with the younger crowd: our hero being forced into never-ending dishwashing.
Final Thoughts
In the end, Search for SquarePants stands as a reliable entry to the franchise – and arguably the most humorous Pirates of the Caribbean movie recently, encompassing a hearty Davy Jones joke and a cheekily innuendo-laden catchphrase for SpongeBob's friend Patrick: “The best guys are big guys.” It's certain: those early fans will probably be snickering anew.
Coming to Theaters: 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.
