SpongeBob's Latest: Search for SquarePants Review – A Swashbuckling Dose of Snicker-Inducing Silliness
Could those original fans who chuckled through the first SpongeBob escapades have envisioned the series enduring for a quarter-century, following absorbing the most lysergic of narrative twists? This longevity is in part attributed to its broad appeal, tickling the sense of humor of grown-ups – perhaps even those now grown students – as well as the very young viewers. While it can't claim anything as unexpected as a certain legendary David Hasselhoff cameo in the 2004 movie, this latest movie thinks nothing of making Clancy Brown talk like a pirate while handing out royalty cheques to stars like Barbra Streisand. It seems anything can still in the zany world of Bikini Bottom.
A Familiar Zany Vibe
Starting with a holiday short featuring Paramount's other weathered family favorites, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the latest SpongeBob film soon finds a comfortably silly groove. Its storyline acts as a PG-rated treatise on the advantages and disadvantages of maturity. This version of SpongeBob (again brought to life by Tom Kenny) now measures a specific height, a detail that excites him as it at last qualifies him to experience his fantasy coaster. (An initial, trippy gag: our overexcitable hero's imagined loop-the-loops.) However, like the finest modern American animation, the real rollercoaster is the corkscrew plotting.
The Adventure for Pirate Credentials
SpongeBob's mission to obtain the fabled swashbuckler certificate that will prove him a “big guy” brings him into a showdown with the spectral Flying Dutchman, voiced by the suddenly ubiquitous Mark Hamill. Although the Dutchman's ship introduces a grander scope, the movie's visual style remains a charming mix of digital animation 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 scenes include SpongeBob squeezing himself into an air conditioner and emerging somehow squarer than before; a cameo from a pair of chattering joke-shop false teeth; and a penalty guaranteed to resonate with the six-year-old audience: our hero being forced into never-ending dishwashing.
The Verdict
In the end, Search for SquarePants stands as a reliable entry to the series – and arguably the funniest Pirates of the Caribbean movie in years, encompassing a hearty Davy Jones gag and a cheekily suggestive saying for SpongeBob's friend Patrick: “The best guys are big guys.” One thing is clear: those early fans will likely be snickering anew.
Release Dates: The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants arrives on 19 December in the US, 20 December in Ireland, and December 26th in Australia and the UK.
