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Could those original fans who laughed through the first SpongeBob adventures have envisioned the franchise enduring for a quarter-century, following experiencing the most surreal of plotlines? This staying power is in part due to its wide-ranging charm, tickling the funny bones of adults – perhaps even those now grown students – alongside the youngest viewers. While it can't claim anything as surprising as the memorable David Hasselhoff appearance in the 2004 film, this fourth feature thinks nothing of making a veteran voice actor speak as a pirate while dispensing royalty cheques to stars like Barbra Streisand. This proves everything remains possible in the whimsical world of Bikini Bottom.

A Familiar Goofy Groove

Starting with a holiday short starring Paramount's other weathered babysitters, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the latest SpongeBob movie soon settles into a comfortably silly rhythm. Its script serves as a family-friendly treatise on the advantages and disadvantages of maturity. This iteration of SpongeBob (again voiced by Tom Kenny) now stands a specific height, a detail that excites him as it finally qualifies him to experience his dream rollercoaster. (An early, trippy laugh: our overexcitable hero's imagined loop-the-loops.) Yet, like the best modern American cartoons, the true rollercoaster is the twisting narrative.

The Adventure for Pirate Proof

SpongeBob's quest to secure the fabled pirate license that will declare him a “big guy” brings him into conflict with the ghostly Flying Dutchman, voiced by the suddenly ubiquitous Mark Hamill. While the Dutchman's ship introduces a larger scale, the movie's visual style remains a delightful bricolage of digimation and hand-crafted components, consistently showcasing satisfying, authentically cartoonish visuals.

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

Memorable moments include SpongeBob wedging himself into an air conditioner and emerging somehow squarer than ever; a cameo 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.

Final Thoughts

Ultimately, Search for SquarePants is a solid entry to the series – and perhaps the most humorous Pirates of the Caribbean movie recently, including a robust Davy Jones gag and a cheekily suggestive catchphrase for SpongeBob's friend Patrick: “The best guys are big guys.” It's certain: those original fans will probably 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.