'The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants' Review: Aquatic Anarchy in Doses of Nostalgia
Just to get it out of the way: Ice Spice has a song in the new SpongeBob movie, and it is as weird and out of place as you may imagine. Yet, despite all the marketing being built around that uber-obnoxious song and a bevy of plain jokes being packed therein, the film itself is a surprisingly good time.
In fact, it’s the best the titular character has been on the big screen since his cinematic debut in 2006. ‘The SpongeBob Movie: Search For SquarePants’ feels like a return to form, and fans have director Derek Drymon to thank.
Having been involved in the original show since its inception, Drymon’s name is one that longtime watchers have undoubtedly seen pop up on countless occasions in front of their favorite episodes. While he’s primarily been a writer up to now, Search for SquarePants represents the undersea veteran’s first shot at directing a movie in this canon. Not only did he deliver a fun film, but one in the same vein as the cartoon’s glory days.
From the beginning, Drymon’s SpongeBob movie is absolute anarchy. Revolving around SpongeBob’s kiddy desire to be a “big guy” so that he can take on a terrifying rollercoaster, the journey quickly evolves into a monster-ridden, almost gateway horror sort of tale journeying into the underworld of this infamous universe.
With Mark Hamill’s Flying Dutchman at the center of the story, the resulting hijinks are as absurd and, in equal parts, compelling as that casting is in concept. Just don’t look at his nose for too long.
For starters, whether traversing through the aforementioned underworld on the Dutchman’s ship or bussing around Bikini Bottom in a Winnebago, the movie looks terrific. There is a specific charm that is lost in translation here, having given up the spirit that comes with the cartoon’s classic 2D-animated look, but it’s (mostly) made up for with glossy colors and rich environmental design. Truly, the work done here to bring places and creatures to life in a unique way will be a cardinal mark of this movie’s identity in the future.
Though despite the visual coat of paint, this is still very much “classic” SpongeBob, at least, for the most part. Just as Drymon had promised prior to release, much of Search for SquarePants feels like the first season of the series. The humor is brash, constant and unashamedly idiotic. There are more than a few knockout sequences in this one, and it feels like the writers knew it, because those shots hold stronger and the scenes go on for longer.
Adversely, though, the overtly childish humor that has come to plague the franchise as a whole in recent memory is still somewhat present here. While not as constant, and not always unfunny, jabs about gastric issues and rear-ends are about as common as fish and gills here.
While not inherently unfunny - everyone loves a good fart joke now and again - the gag is certainly overused and, further, makes the film feel a little less like its own thing in the long run.
Thankfully, even given those slips, Search for SquarePants is saved by a consistent commitment to its ludicrous, nonsensical tone and a fairly concise emotional swing in the third act. It won’t have you weeping, but this is a movie working to deliver an idea to the audience beyond the basic, digestible theme, and its third act makes that plenty clear.
In relation to the idea that every kid must grow up eventually, SpongeBob’s “big guy” goals are tied to suppressing expectations about his creative identity and specific fears. As silly as it sounds, watching this yellow sponge overcome normative rules around what it means to be “tough” and “grown up” is terribly endearing, especially through the eyes of anyone who may feel like they grew up too fast. If you’re at the SpongeBob movie, chances are you fall into that category.
Search for SquarePants’ ultimate resolution hammers this home, with (no spoilers) Mr. Krabs literally embracing the little guy for what he is in the face of what he had demanded of him earlier in the runtime. It’s SpongeBob’s pure heart and indelible youth that get him by in the end and, whether you see this alone or accompanied by kids of your own, that’s something to be taken home and embraced.
The newest movie in the long-running, arguably exhausted SpongeBob canon isn’t necessarily a full-on revival, but it is a sober reminder of what this property is capable of and, to that point, who this audience may have been when they initially fell in love with it. Be sure to see it with people you love, and see it as large as you can (for the sake of the movie theaters)… SpongeBob belongs on the big screen.