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Would the original fans who chuckled through the initial SpongeBob adventures have envisioned the franchise persisting for a 25 years, following experiencing the most lysergic of plotlines? This longevity is in part due to its wide-ranging charm, amusing the sense of humor 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 fourth feature has no qualms about making a veteran voice actor speak as a pirate while dispensing royalty cheques to stars like Barbra Streisand. It seems everything can still in the whimsical world of Bikini Bottom.

A Familiar Zany Vibe

Kicking off with a holiday short starring Paramount's alternative weathered babysitters, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the new SpongeBob movie quickly settles into a comfortably silly groove. Its script acts as a family-friendly treatise on the advantages and disadvantages of maturity. This version of SpongeBob (again voiced by Tom Kenny) now measures a specific height, a detail that thrills him as it finally allows him to ride his fantasy coaster. (An early, psychedelic gag: our overexcitable hero's fantasized loop-the-loops.) Yet, like the finest contemporary American animation, the true rollercoaster is the corkscrew plotting.

The Adventure for Swashbuckling Proof

SpongeBob's mission to secure the legendary pirate license that will declare him a “big guy” leads him into conflict with the ghostly Flying Dutchman, brought to life by the currently ever-present Mark Hamill. Although the Dutchman's ghost ship introduces a larger scale, the film's aesthetic remains a charming bricolage of digital animation and hand-crafted elements, forever highlighting pleasing, properly cartoonish visuals.

Whether its freewheeling silliness will linger when the lights come up is debatable, but it's a strong SpongeBob movie.

Notable moments feature SpongeBob squeezing himself into an air conditioner and emerging inexplicably squarer than before; a brief appearance from a pair of chattering joke-shop false teeth; and a penalty sure to delight the younger audience: our hero being forced into endless dishwashing.

The Verdict

In the end, Search for SquarePants stands as a reliable entry to the franchise – and perhaps the most humorous pirate-themed movie recently, encompassing a hearty Davy Jones gag and a saltily innuendo-laden catchphrase for SpongeBob's pal Patrick: “The best guys are big guys.” One thing is clear: those original students will probably be snickering anew.

Release Dates: The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants debuts on December 19th in the US, 20 December in Ireland, and 26 December in Australia and the UK.