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Would the early viewers who chuckled through the first SpongeBob adventures have predicted the franchise enduring for a 25 years, even after experiencing the most lysergic of narrative twists? This longevity is in part due to its wide-ranging appeal, tickling the funny bones of grown-ups – perhaps even those now grown students – alongside the youngest viewers. Although it can't claim anything quite as unexpected as a certain legendary David Hasselhoff cameo in the 2004 movie, this latest movie has no qualms about making Clancy Brown talk like a pirate while dispensing royalty cheques to music icons like Barbra Streisand. It seems anything remains possible in the zany world of Bikini Bottom.

An Established Goofy Vibe

Starting with a festive short featuring Paramount's other weathered babysitters, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the new SpongeBob movie soon settles into a comfortably silly rhythm. 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 36 clams high, 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 contemporary American cartoons, the real rollercoaster is the corkscrew narrative.

The Quest for Pirate Proof

SpongeBob's quest to obtain the fabled swashbuckler certificate that will declare him a “big guy” brings him into a showdown with the ghostly Flying Dutchman, brought to life by the suddenly ever-present Mark Hamill. While the Dutchman's ship introduces a grander scope, the movie's aesthetic remains a delightful bricolage of digital animation and hand-crafted elements, consistently showcasing satisfying, properly cartoonish effects.

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

Notable moments feature SpongeBob wedging himself into an air conditioner and emerging inexplicably more rectangular than ever; a cameo from a pair of chattering joke-shop false teeth; and a punishment sure to delight the younger audience: our hero being subjected to endless dishwashing.

The Verdict

In the end, Search for SquarePants stands as a reliable entry to the series – and arguably the funniest pirate-themed movie in years, including a robust Davy Jones joke and a saltily innuendo-laden saying for SpongeBob's friend Patrick: “The best guys are big guys.” It's certain: those early students will probably be snickering all over again.

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