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Could those original fans who chuckled through the first SpongeBob adventures have envisioned the franchise enduring for a 25 years, even after experiencing the most surreal of narrative twists? Such staying power is in part due to its broad appeal, amusing the funny bones of grown-ups – perhaps even those now grown students – alongside the youngest viewers. Although it can't claim anything as surprising as the memorable David Hasselhoff cameo in the 2004 movie, this fourth feature has no qualms about making Clancy Brown talk like a pirate while dispensing royalty cheques to music icons like Barbra Streisand. This proves everything remains possible in the zany world of Bikini Bottom.

An Established Zany Vibe

Kicking off with a holiday short featuring Paramount's alternative long-running babysitters, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the latest SpongeBob film soon finds a comfortably silly groove. Its script acts as a family-friendly treatise on the pros and cons of maturity. This iteration of SpongeBob (again brought to life by Tom Kenny) now stands 36 clams high, a detail that thrills him as it at last allows him to experience his fantasy coaster. (An initial, psychedelic gag: our enthusiastic hero's imagined loop-the-loops.) Yet, as in the finest contemporary American animation, the true rollercoaster is the corkscrew plotting.

The Adventure for Pirate Credentials

SpongeBob's quest to secure the legendary pirate license that will prove him a “big guy” brings him into a showdown with the ghostly Flying Dutchman, voiced by the currently ubiquitous Mark Hamill. Although the Dutchman's ship introduces a larger scale, the movie's visual style remains a delightful mix of digital animation and hand-crafted elements, forever highlighting satisfying, properly cartoonish effects.

If its spitballing silliness will linger when the lights come up is debatable, but it's a solid SpongeBob movie.

Memorable scenes feature SpongeBob squeezing himself into an AC unit and emerging inexplicably more rectangular than ever; a brief appearance from a pair of chattering joke-shop false teeth; and a penalty sure to delight the six-year-old crowd: our hero being subjected to never-ending dishwashing.

The Verdict

Ultimately, Search for SquarePants is a reliable entry to the franchise – and perhaps the most humorous pirate-themed movie recently, including a hearty Davy Jones gag and a cheekily suggestive catchphrase for SpongeBob's friend Patrick: “The best guys are big guys.” It's clear: those original fans will probably be chuckling all over again.

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