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Would the original fans who laughed through the initial SpongeBob escapades have envisioned the series enduring for a 25 years, even after absorbing the most surreal of narrative twists? This longevity is in part attributed to its wide-ranging appeal, amusing the funny bones of adults – perhaps even those now grown students – alongside the youngest viewers. While it may not feature anything as surprising as the memorable David Hasselhoff cameo in the 2004 movie, this fourth feature thinks nothing of having a veteran voice actor speak as a pirate while dispensing payments to stars like Barbra Streisand. This proves anything remains possible in the zany world of Bikini Bottom.

A Familiar Zany Groove

Kicking off with a festive short featuring Paramount's alternative long-running family favorites, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the latest SpongeBob film quickly finds a comfortably goofy groove. Its script serves as a family-friendly treatise on the advantages and disadvantages of maturity. This version of SpongeBob (again brought to life by Tom Kenny) now stands 36 clams high, a detail that thrills him as it at last qualifies him to ride his dream rollercoaster. (An early, psychedelic gag: our overexcitable hero's fantasized loop-the-loops.) However, as in the finest modern American cartoons, the real rollercoaster is the corkscrew plotting.

The Quest for Swashbuckling Proof

SpongeBob's quest to secure the legendary pirate license that will declare him a “big guy” leads him into a showdown with the ghostly Flying Dutchman, voiced by the suddenly ubiquitous Mark Hamill. Although the Dutchman's ship adds a larger scale, the movie's visual style remains a charming mix of digimation and hand-crafted elements, consistently highlighting satisfying, properly animated effects.

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

Notable scenes feature SpongeBob wedging himself into an AC unit and emerging inexplicably more rectangular than ever; a cameo from a pair of chattering joke-shop false teeth; and a punishment guaranteed to delight the six-year-old audience: our hero being subjected to endless dishwashing.

The Verdict

In the end, Search for SquarePants is a solid entry to the series – and perhaps the most humorous pirate-themed movie recently, encompassing a robust Davy Jones joke and a saltily suggestive saying for SpongeBob's friend Patrick: “The best guys are big guys.” One thing is certain: those early fans will likely be chuckling all over again.

Coming to Theaters: 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.