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Could those original fans who chuckled through the initial SpongeBob adventures have envisioned the series enduring for a 25 years, even after experiencing the most lysergic of plotlines? This staying power is in part due to its wide-ranging appeal, amusing the funny bones of adults – perhaps even those now grown students – alongside the youngest viewers. Although it can't claim anything quite as unexpected as a certain memorable David Hasselhoff cameo in the 2004 film, this fourth feature thinks nothing of having a veteran voice actor speak as a pirate while handing out royalty cheques to stars like Barbra Streisand. It seems everything remains possible in the whimsical world of Bikini Bottom.

An Established Zany Groove

Kicking off with a holiday short starring Paramount's alternative weathered family favorites, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the latest SpongeBob movie quickly finds a comfortably goofy groove. Its script serves as a PG-rated treatise on the advantages and disadvantages of maturity. This version of SpongeBob (again brought to life by Tom Kenny) now stands a specific height, a detail that thrills him as it at last allows him to ride his fantasy coaster. (An early, psychedelic laugh: our enthusiastic hero's imagined loop-the-loops.) However, as in the best modern American cartoons, the real thrill ride is the twisting plotting.

The Quest for Pirate Credentials

SpongeBob's quest to obtain the fabled pirate license that will prove him a “big guy” leads him into conflict with the spectral Flying Dutchman, voiced by the currently ever-present Mark Hamill. While the Dutchman's ship adds a grander scope, the film's aesthetic remains a delightful bricolage of digital animation and hand-turned components, forever highlighting satisfying, properly cartoonish visuals.

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

Notable scenes feature SpongeBob squeezing himself into an air conditioner and emerging somehow more rectangular than before; a brief appearance from a pair of chattering joke-shop false teeth; and a punishment guaranteed to delight the younger audience: our hero being subjected to never-ending dishwashing.

The Verdict

In the end, Search for SquarePants stands as a reliable entry to the series – and perhaps the funniest Pirates of the Caribbean movie recently, including a hearty Davy Jones joke and a saltily innuendo-laden saying for SpongeBob's friend Patrick: “The best guys are big guys.” One thing is certain: those original fans will probably be snickering anew.

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