In the familiar underwater city of Bikini Bottom, SpongeBob SquarePants (voiced again by Tom Kenny) finally sees himself as a ‘’big guy’’ and readily prepares to ride an intense roller coaster with his best friend, Patrick (voiced again by Bill Fagerbakke), but fearfully backs down last minute. Wanting to be more fearless like his boss, Mr. Krabs (voiced again by Clancy Brown) who states that only truly brave souls are capable of being true ‘’swashbucklers’’ like him, SpongeBob finds himself coming face-to-face with The Flying Dutchman (voiced by Mark Hamill), who agrees to help SpongeBob become a true swashbuckler by taking him (and Patrick as well) to The Underworld, a realm filled with all kinds of monstrous creatures. What the naïve youth doesn’t know is that The Dutchman plans to use him to break his eternal curse (which can only be done by a pure-hearted soul), prompting Mr. Krabs to journey to The Underworld with Squidward (voiced again by Rodger Bumpass) in order to save SpongeBob from taking on the curse himself.
SEARCH FOR SQUAREPANTS doesn’t rock the boat in a substantial enough way to make its surprisingly solid critical and audience ratings feel deserved but carries enough inoffensively child-like innocence to explain why many are perfectly content with this silly romp. Meant exclusively for children while the adults can at least tolerate the chaos, the low stakes plot, predictable character portrayals and largely uncreative humour is enough to keep this entry from the highs of the original series but feels comfortably effective for its target audience and demographic.
In an era where SpongeBob has seemingly lasted longer than necessary, the grip the franchise has over pop culture isn’t as tight as it was previously, calling into question whether a theatrical feature was even something fans wanted to see, especially after the past three Netflix-exclusive features (Sponge on the Run, Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie, and Plankton: The Movie) were largely dismissed by both them and critics.
Despite this, SEARCH FOR SQUAREPANTS did have potential to reignite the passion people felt for the original series, with series veteran, Derek Drymon, helming the film as director, and featuring a mix of show writers like Marc Ceccarelli and Kazimieras Prapuolenis (or Kaz) and newcomers like Matt Lieberman and Pam Brady to work on the screenplay and story. There was a chance for a renewed sense of freshness with this new cinematic release, although this might be giving it too much credit, as while Search for SquarePants is perfectly functional for young children thanks to its hyperactive energy, animation and characters, it also feels solely fitted for them with practically nothing for adults.
While containing a dose of the surreal chaotic nature of the show, it’s not offering much that hasn’t already been showcased in other projects, and due to originally being a streaming film, the stakes are pretty low, the drama is barely felt, and the end results just feel marginally charming instead of something that’ll impact on an extreme level. Even most of the creatives don’t feel like they’re adding enough of a unique touch to bring the best out of this fairly straightforward but otherwise passable plot, as Drymon clearly understands the show but doesn’t do much to freshen things up, Pam Brady feels strangled by the cutesy personality and can’t provide any of her cutting adult material, and Matt Lieberman’s mixed (at best) track record makes it obvious why some of the humour is largely unmemorable.
Despite seeming like a fairly unimpressive entry, the movie is entirely harmless and will entertain its target audience perfectly nicely as it has a quick enough pace to speed through its relatively short length, has the likeable characters do what they’re best known for doing, and has jokes that are pretty one-note and rely on in-your-face wackiness, but aren’t degrading or painful to sit through.
The characters have lasted several years at this point and have done so thanks to very memorable designs, personalities, and vocal performances, and therefore have enough staying power to work in as many future projects as can be envisioned. As this was originally positioned as a Mr. Krabs centric feature before it became theatrical, it’s no surprise many of his traits bleed into the plot, especially the pirate component and the bond between him and SpongeBob, all of which have the chance to be engaging, but feels like it’s charting familiar waters.
Audiences have already seen SpongeBob tackle trying to be older, seen him clash with Mr. Krabs over his youthful nature, and seen his innocence be used against him by a more nefarious foe, so a lot of the scenes and character conflicts don’t offer anything different.
All the returning voice cast still do a great job bringing these characters to life, with Tom Kenny in particular still feeling as lively and loveable as ever, but not all of them get the chance to show off their abilities due to limited or wasted screentime. Patrick just feels like he’s along for the ride, Mr. Krabs is a semi catalyst to this predicament, but his hasty side plot prevents much time for meaningful interactions, Squidward is solely used as the butt of several jokes, and even The Flying Dutchman feels oddly handled despite being the main antagonist.
Despite being a show regular, he’s treated like a brand-new face, and that familiarity weakens what could’ve come from this premise if it were an original character instead. Also, while Mark Hamill does a perfectly fine job, not allowing the original voice actor, Brian Doyle-Murray, to voice the character he’s done for years feels a little rotten.
A strange component of these newer SpongeBob films is that they’re done with 3D animation rather than the traditional 2D styling of the show, which frequently felt like an odd choice. While it could just be due to modern Hollywood being terrified of theatrically releasing 2D animation, it’s hard to give a definitive reasoning and it’d be better to instead determine how effectively this new style incorporates and portrays the series. While the past three films had lively colours and expressive models, there was a hint of cheapness behind certain moments that further proved these were spin-offs tackling a style the team probably wasn’t familiar with, so it’s nice that this latest film not only feels upgraded in order to look cinema-quality, but feels a lot more comfortable in this new style and really makes the most of it.
Provided by Reel FX Animation, the visual effects were specifically designed to avoid looking hyper realistic and instead feel more personally crafted in a way that matched SpongeBob style, and it does that pretty nicely. This doesn’t just come through the vibrant color palette and nicely translated character models, but also in the expressions that still manage to be large, bold and cartoonishly fluid in a way that still feels reminiscent of their 2D designs, just with a broader structure that takes advantage of the additional dimension. It’s true that the film can overuse this bombastic and overly zippy animation with comedy that veers extremely close to hectic for the sake of entertaining children with rapid movement, but there’s at least some breathing room to prevent a total madhouse. Even though the original look is always going to be better suited, it’s at least nice they were able to use this new look efficiently.
There’s not a lot to be said about THE SPONGEBOB MOVIE: SEARCH FOR SQUAREPANTS, largely because it doesn’t do much beyond adhere to its base demographic, but it’s hard to really fault it for that. Despite SpongeBob as a series surprisingly offering more for older audiences than expected, this movie isn’t on the same level nor does it feel like it upgraded enough to dismiss its conception as a streaming film, but for what it is and what it hopes to accomplish, it’s not like it failed in its end goal. The story feels pretty basic, the characters are very standardly delivered and not always used efficiently, and the jokes are pretty unremarkable, but it has enough bright colours, frantic movement, and silly joy to entertain kids while parents will at least be able to tolerate it. Most will never forget who lives in a pineapple under the sea, but it’s safe to presume anyone over the age of seven will forget this flick pretty quickly.
