It’s kind of insane how long SpongeBob SquarePants has remained a cultural icon for multiple generations. The newest movie The SpongeBob Movie: Search For Squarepants, looks to bring in fans old and new of the yellow undersea creature. For longtime fans that grew up on him, this movie is a bit of a departure. The animation style is 3D and updated from what you remember of the cartoon. The old-school ingredients are all there though. The SpongeBob Movie: Search For SquarePants stars Tom Kenny, Clancy Brown, Rodger Bumpass, Bill Fagerbakke, Carolyn Lawrence, Mr. Lawrence, George Lopez, Ice Spice, Regina Hall, and Mark Hamill.
The story here follows SpongeBob as he finally grows tall enough to ride a roller coaster at a theme park in Bikini Bottom. That roller coaster becomes an analogy for a bigger thing in SpongeBob’s life, he’s now a “big guy” but is still scared of the roller coaster. That leads him to Mr. Krabs and his past life as a swashbuckler. SpongeBob becomes obsessed with becoming a swashbuckler to garner the respect of Krabs. SpongeBob finds a magical flute that brings back the Flying Dutchman (voiced and played by Mark Hamill). The Dutchman isn’t all he seems to be though, as he’s trying to use SpongeBob to end his curse and swap ghostly places with him.
As it goes on, SpongeBob has to finish several trials and get to the end of a path (or a road, there’s a joke about this in the movie), and he’ll “become a swashbuckler.” Mr. Krabs, Squidward, and Gary all have to go and save SpongeBob from the Dutchman, and the movie is off and running.
There are several disappointing factors about this movie, especially for longtime fans of the series. One, there are several characters that are relegated to cameo appearances like Sandy Cheeks and Plankton. As it stands, this really does feel like an episode of the show that was stretched out to become a movie. There are plenty of jokes that are going to make kids and adults laugh alike, but there’s definitely more of a slant to the kids stuff this time around. The magic of SpongeBob for so long has been that kids and adults can enjoy the show, but for this movie, it was more slanted.
The highlight of the entire movie is Mark Hamill though. He was originally voiced in the show by Brian Doyle-Murray, but they had Hamill step in here. That does break the continuity of the show a bit, because the Dutchman was introduced in the series’ first season, but here SpongeBob is acting like he’s never met him before. No idea on how strict they are with continuity between movies and the show.
Hamill, though, is excellent and fully goes in on the bit of playing an old, frightening pirate. When the movie switches to him being live-action instead of animated, Hamill goes full-on insane with his performance. The other voice actors are about as you would expect, if you’ve been watching the show since the beginning, Tom Kenny sounds like SpongeBob, Bill Fagerbakke is dumb as Patrick (in a good way), and Clancy Brown’s iconic voice fits Mr. Krabs.
The SpongeBob Movie: Search For SquarePants ends up as a fine movie for people who grew up with the series, but your kids might get more mileage out of it. It doesn’t end up feeling like a theatrical release, and more so an extended episode of the TV series though. The hallmarks of the series are all here and it’s something that you’ll still likely get a kick out of.
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