After 26 years of nautical nonsense, SpongeBob SquarePants remains a seaworthy vessel, cruising familiar waters yet continuing to fill the hold with plunder.
Search for SquarePants opens with SpongeBob realising he’s finally tall enough for the rollercoaster that he and best pal Patrick have long dreamed of. He still lacks the “intestinal fortitude” to board the fairground attraction, however, much to the amusement of his swashbuckling boss, Mr Krabs.
Undeterred, the foolhardy SpongeBob sets out to prove that he’s a “big guy”, summoning the cursed spirit of the Flying Dutchman – “the most pants-wettingly scary ghost to ever roam the high seas” – along the way.
The mutable geography of Bikini Bottom, SpongeBob’s stomping ground, has previously yielded such fascinating frontiers as Jellyfish Fields and Rock Bottom. Whatever Christopher Nolan has achieved with his upcoming The Odyssey, his Homeric stylings won’t compete with this journey to the underworld, where a three-headed seagull stands in for Scylla, and Sirens lure Squidward – SpongeBob’s long-suffering colleague and neighbour – with smooth jazz.
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Series regulars are well met by Regina Hall’s Barb (the Flying Dutchman’s underling), Ice Spice’s weary ticket taker, and Mark Hamill, having cackling fun as the Dutchman.
Derek Drymon, the film’s director, who has been with the show for more than a quarter of a century, mounts fast and wacky oceanic chases. As much as this reviewer prefers the traditional hand-drawn SpongeBob, the animators make a great case for CG, with drifts and dodges past fantastic aquatic beasts.
The script, by South Park’s Pam Brady and Free Guy’s Matt Lieberman, keeps the momentum brisk and treats the well-worn premise – SpongeBob’s tomfoolery saves the day – as if it’s the uncharted regions of the Mariana Trench.
The visual gags are fresh, the jokes are funny, the world-building is disarmingly buoyant, and the musical cues, from Holiday in Cambodia to Carmina Burana, are playful.
You could watch The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants twice and have 10 times the fun of someone who was by now still only trudging into the last 20 minutes of Avatar: Fire and Ash. Set sail for Pants!
Opens in cinemas on Saturday, December 20th, with previews from Thursday, December 18th
