The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants Review – A Swashbuckling Helping of Giggle-Provoking Silliness
Would the early viewers who chuckled through the first SpongeBob adventures have predicted the series persisting for a quarter-century, following experiencing the most surreal of narrative twists? Such staying power is partly due to its wide-ranging charm, tickling the funny bones of grown-ups – possibly even those former students – as well as the very young viewers. While it may not feature anything quite as unexpected as the legendary David Hasselhoff cameo in the 2004 movie, this latest movie has no qualms about having a veteran voice actor talk like a pirate while handing out payments to stars like Barbra Streisand. It seems everything can still in the whimsical world of Bikini Bottom.
An Established Zany Vibe
Starting with a holiday short featuring Paramount's alternative weathered family favorites, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the new SpongeBob movie soon settles into a comfortably goofy groove. Its script serves as a family-friendly exploration on the advantages and disadvantages of maturity. This version of SpongeBob (again voiced by Tom Kenny) now stands 36 clams high, a detail that excites him as it at last allows him to ride his dream rollercoaster. (An early, psychedelic gag: our overexcitable hero's imagined loop-the-loops.) Yet, like the finest modern American animation, the true thrill ride is the twisting narrative.
The Quest for Pirate Credentials
SpongeBob's quest to obtain the fabled swashbuckler certificate that will declare him a “big guy” leads him into a showdown with the spectral Flying Dutchman, voiced by the suddenly ubiquitous Mark Hamill. Although the Dutchman's ghost ship adds a larger scale, the movie's visual style remains a charming bricolage of digital animation and hand-crafted elements, consistently showcasing pleasing, authentically animated effects.
Whether its spitballing silliness will resonate when the lights come up is debatable, but it's a solid SpongeBob movie.
Memorable scenes include SpongeBob wedging himself into an AC unit and emerging somehow squarer than ever; a cameo from a pair of chattering joke-shop false teeth; and a penalty sure to resonate with the six-year-old crowd: our hero being subjected to never-ending dishwashing.
The Verdict
Ultimately, Search for SquarePants is a reliable addition to the franchise – and arguably the most humorous Pirates of the Caribbean movie in years, including a robust Davy Jones gag and a cheekily suggestive catchphrase for SpongeBob's friend Patrick: “The best guys are big guys.” It's clear: those early fans will probably be chuckling anew.
Coming to Theaters: The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants debuts on 19 December in the US, December 20th in Ireland, and 26 December in Australia and the UK.
