The franchise’s funniest movie to this point

One of many causes for the stunning longevity oftheSpongeBob SquarePantsfranchise is in its foremost character’s very sponginess. Together with most different characters that reside in Bikini Backside, SpongeBob (Tom Kenny) is stretched and molded, lower up, sliced, diced and explodedadvertinfinitum, a Gumby of the ocean whose malleability is exploited for Buster Keaton-esque comedian delirium.

The SpongeBob Film: Seek for Squarepants is essentially the most ridiculous and funniest SpongeBob movie for the reason that first silver display screen adaptation in 2004. SpongeBob and Patrick (Invoice Fagerbakke) are flattened, molded, blended, squeezed via tubes and sucked into the underworld. Written by Matt Lieberman and Pam Brady, the latter whose collective credit embrace Scorching Rod, South Park, and Group America, the movie makes use of SpongeBob’s malleability as a defining throughline.

The Seek for SquarePants is SpongeBob’s Funniest Journey in Extra Than 20 Years

When the movie opens, SpongeBob is delighted to seek out out that he has grown half a clam to the towering peak of thirty-six clams. The revelation is big information for Bikini Backside’s favourite fry prepare dinner, as SpongeBob has been determined to be seen as a “Huge Man” in order that he can experience the Shipwreck curler coaster at Captain Booty Beard’s Enjoyable Park. The expansion spurt is so noticeable, apparently, that Patrick initially confuses his finest good friend for his grandmother, and Sandy (Carolyn Lawrence) assumes he is purchased new footwear.

However, on the enjoyable park, SpongeBob instantly will get chilly toes when he sees the wildly harmful twists and turns and drops he’d should endure. In a panic, he makes up a lie: he cannot go on the experience as a result of he promised Mr. Krabs (Clancy Brown) that he would experience it with him. And so the 2 friends head to the Krusty Krab, which by some means results in the staunch capitalist expounding on his supposed days as a pirate captain. That is proper: Mr. Krabs is a Licensed Swashbuckler. No, actually, he has a certificates praising his fortified intestines, his panache, his moxie and an entire slew of different necessities to be thought-about a Huge Man.

Effectively, SpongeBob needs to be seen as a Huge Man, too, and after a collection of auspicious twists and turns within the basement of the restaurant, he and Patrick discover Mr. Krabs’ treasure trove of Pirate treasures. Instantly, a windpipe seems luring SpongeBob to blow it, which he’s advised will assist him develop into mentioned Huge Man. However when he does, a neon inexperienced and blue whirlpool seems, with The Flying Dutchman (Star Wars‘ Mark Hamill) rising from the slimy depths. His objective? To seek out an harmless, big-hearted dope from which he can steal a soul and break his personal curse. Mr. SquarePants is the proper candidate.

SpongeBob naively accepts the supply to hitch the Dutchman’s crew, and is quickly adopted by Mr. Krabs, SpongeBob’s pet snail Gary, and Squidward (Rodger Bumpass), who’s blackmailed with the specter of being demoted to the acne-inducing job of fry prepare dinner ought to he refuse. Director Derek Drymon (Lodge Transylvania: Transformania) retains issues going at a breakneck velocity, with jokes each verbal and visible flying in at an unbelievable clip. One significantly good runner is a play on the time period “shitting bricks,” the place every character, in worry, squeezes so laborious a literal brick falls out of their pants. “You dropped your fortunate brick, Patrick.” “I haven’t got a fortunate brick.”

That SpongeBob’s complete character’s motivation on this, his sixth movie journey, is to experience a curler coaster, underscores the kind of high-stakes low-stakes straddle which makes the character so satisfying. And SpongeBob just isn’t the one character that will get the clay-like therapy of the physique; within the underworld, the Dutchman and his sidekick Barb (Sherry Cola) can’t imagine the depths of his and Patrick’s stupidity, their faces melted by utter shock. Although, coincidentally, the murderous military of sword-wielding skeletons on their path collapse in bone-breaking laughter, so who’s laughing now?

The animation is equally a visible cornucopia: significantly within the underworld, there is no scarcity of resplendent creatures. Large squids, sharp-toothed sirens and Sauron-esque rope monsters are simply among the bizarro creatures SpongeBob and firm should get previous, particularly when climbing the video-game like fortress that’s Problem Cove.

Certain, the movie has some classes to dole out about accepting your self for each your strengths and weaknesses (and the way these weaknesses are literally strengths, given the precise circumstances), however, actually, The Seek for SquarePants is only a raucously good time punctuated by a bevy of butt jokes. In a movie that will get mileage merely out of the escalating desperation with which SpongeBob blinks his eye, how sophisticated does its messaging have to be? All of us want a extremely good snort, and Drymon and firm ship.