There’s no joy to be found in lobbing mud balls at Bikini Bottom (even though the behavior may find a curmudgeonly companion in Plankton), but the fourth theatrical feature film in the SpongeBob SquarePants oeuvre—The SpongeBob Movie: Search For SquarePants—doesn’t give audiences a memorable outing, much less a best day ever. It’s a big downgrade, and a huge disappointment for long-time fans of the subversive and unapologetically silly character.
Search For SquarePants is the first of his films to be directed by Derek Drymon, who was part of late series creator Stephen Hillenburg’s brain trust in bringing SpongeBob series to Nickelodeon. Drymon served as creative director for the first three seasons, and a co-writer on the first feature, The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, with Hillenburg. All of which is to say that Drymon knows this world inside and out, but his first turn at the wheel of the ship is curiously unambitious in terms of either laughs or visuals.
Search For SquarePants certainly opens with potential, as the real-life Clancy Brown (who voices Mr. Krabs), dressed as a dour pirate, gets sloshed around his tumbling ship’s cabin as he tries to relate the legend of the fearsome ghost pirate, The Flying Dutchman (voiced by Mark Hamill). Cursed to sail the monster-filled waters of the Underworld until he can trade places with an innocent, unsuspecting replacement, the Dutchman and his crew are restless to find their marks.
Cue SpongeBob (voiced by Tom Kenny) who wakes up one morning to find that he’s finally grown to 36-clams tall, which instantly thrusts him into “Big Guy” status—which means he is finally tall enough to ride the roller coaster at Captain Booty Beard’s theme park. While Ice Spice’s celebratory “Big Guy” song and a SpongeBob booty-shaking montage is a highlight, it’s also the extent of the musical accompaniment for the rest of the film. It’s a real puzzler why Drymon left out more musical numbers (a SpongeBob movie formula staple by now), as they’re sorely missed in keeping this installment lively through its 96-minute runtime.
Ready to get brave, SpongeBob collects bestie and eternally dim Patrick Star (voiced by Bill Fagerbakke) as his coaster wingman and then quickly chickens out when he sees the ride’s freakish drops in person. So, he enlists the help of Mr. Krabs as an excuse to save face. Instead, Krabs reveals his own origin story as a swole, swashbuckling pirate who once sailed with The Flying Dutchman of yore, and offers to teach the “bubble-blowing baby” how to get his own Swashbuckler Certificate and be brave enough to tackle his fears. Of course, The Flying Dutchman gets wind of this easy prey, so he woos the gullible sponge, promising to get him through a series of challenges to earn his own certificate.
As written by Pam Brady (Team America: World Police, Smurfs) and Matt Lieberman (Free Guy), there’s an awful lot of convoluted setup to get SpongeBob and Patrick properly launched into the story. The script also chops out most of the show’s main ensemble, only allowing guilty Krabs and reluctant Squidward (Rodger Bumpass) along for the ride as they race to save these two dumb-dumbs from the Dutchman‘s clutches.
The performer who seems to be having the best time in all of this is Hamill, who gives it his all, voicing a mostly bewildered version of the ghostly old salt. Then the actor one-ups himself when the Dutchman goes corporeal, embodying a real-world version of the pirate that’s unrepentantly goofy. Unfortunately, this is also the section of Search For SquarePants that feels most slapdash, so there’s not much to the top-side section that isn’t just high-quality green screen trickery.
The laughs are also muted, because they’re mostly rooted in the overly familiar tropes associated with the established characters—dumb Patrick, annoyed Squidward, etc. New characters like Barb the pirate assistant (voiced by Regina Hall) aren’t allowed to be memorable, which prevents the film from ever feeling fresh. And that rolls into the problem of The Flying Dutchman, who’s had an ongoing history in the series since the first season (he was voiced by Brian Doyle-Murray until his recent death) .
If you’re going to bring a well-known character to the big screen, at least change him up, or add something unexpected to take advantage of the upgrade. Sure, the Dutchman’s realm is the most visually interesting in this CG-animated film, but that’s almost a given because of the original creature designs and moody lighting. But everything here pales in comparison to the ambition of the last two straight-to-Netflix SpongeBob spin-offs, Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie and Plankton: The Movie. Both were full of clever, style-exploring animation, or real world vs. animated world interactions that changed up the norms of the series. That’s not the case here; even compared to other CG-animated releases this year, there’s a sparseness to the environments and worldbuilding.
It’s no secret that there’s been a lot of recent upheaval at Paramount, Nickelodeon’s parent company, and The SpongeBob Movie: Search For SquarePants very much feels like a victim of budget cuts and studio notes—the push to just do what everyone likes, instead of swinging for the undersea fences. The result is the least memorable film of the franchise.
Director: Derek Drymon
Writers: Pam Brady, Matt Lieberman
Starring: Tom Kenny, Clancy Brown, Rodger Bumpass, Bill Fagerbakke, Mark Hamill
Release Date: December 19, 2025
