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Could those original fans who chuckled through the initial SpongeBob escapades have predicted the franchise persisting for a 25 years, even after absorbing the most surreal of narrative twists? Such staying power is partly due to its broad charm, tickling the sense of humor of grown-ups – possibly even those former students – as well as the youngest viewers. While it can't claim anything as surprising as a certain legendary David Hasselhoff cameo in the 2004 movie, this fourth feature thinks nothing of making a veteran voice actor 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 Zany Vibe

Starting with a holiday short featuring Paramount's alternative long-running family favorites, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the latest SpongeBob movie soon finds a recognizably 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 dream rollercoaster. (An initial, trippy laugh: our enthusiastic hero's imagined loop-the-loops.) However, as in the finest modern American cartoons, the real rollercoaster is the twisting plotting.

The Adventure for Swashbuckling Proof

SpongeBob's mission to obtain the legendary pirate license 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. Although the Dutchman's ship introduces a grander scope, the movie's aesthetic remains a delightful mix of digital animation and hand-crafted elements, consistently showcasing pleasing, authentically cartoonish effects.

Whether its spitballing silliness will linger after the credits is debatable, but it's a solid SpongeBob movie.

Notable moments feature SpongeBob squeezing himself into an air conditioner and emerging somehow squarer than before; 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 solid entry to the series – and arguably the most humorous pirate-themed movie recently, including a robust Davy Jones joke and a saltily suggestive catchphrase for SpongeBob's friend Patrick: “The best guys are big guys.” It's clear: those original fans 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.