THE SPONGEBOB MOVIE: SEARCH FOR SQUAREPANTS

This is SpongeBob doing what SpongeBob does — silliness, sight gags, and a plot that hinges on the hero's underwear — but it's carrying more weight than you'd expect. At the center is a villain hunting for the world's purest "innocent soul," and a hero whose childlike goodness keeps accidentally wrecking evil plans. There's even a boss who's greedy through and through but still descends into a frightening underworld to bring his employee home.

That's a lot of moral substance for a cartoon sponge. It comes wrapped, though, in ghost pirates, sharp-toothed monsters, and the kind of crude humor — a hook in a bare bottom, jokes about intestines — that's standard for this franchise but not for every child.

If your older kids already love SpongeBob, this one will reward them with laughs and, quietly, something better than laughs. If your children are young or easily spooked, this is a good one to wait on.

The practical answer: take the older kids and adults; let the little ones sit this one out.

SpongeBob has finally grown tall enough to be a "Big Guy" — except he's too scared to ride the grown-up roller coaster at Bikini Bottom's amusement park. Determined to prove himself, he sets his sights on becoming a Swashbuckler like his boss, Mr. Krabs, and heads off with his best friend Patrick to earn his stripes.

That's when a mysterious, ghostly pirate offers SpongeBob a shot at real courage — if he can pass a series of tests. Whether that offer is what it seems is where we'll leave you.

Three stars lands this as a solid, funny entry rather than a franchise standout. The comedy holds up, and the moral and redemptive beats — a hero whose innocence keeps foiling evil, a flawed boss who shows up when it matters — give the movie more staying power than pure gag-reel humor would.

Beyond that, there isn't much to go on for judging the finer points of direction or pacing; the source material speaks mostly to tone and content rather than technical craft. Take the three stars as a mark of solid, dependable entertainment — funny, warm, and a notch above disposable — without more to say about the filmmaking itself. ``

What this movie loves is worth noticing: courage, fortitude, friendship, playfulness, and — above all — childlike innocence. The plot turns on the idea that a pure, guileless heart is stronger than any villain's scheme, and that theme carries real Christological weight. A villain seeks the world's "most innocent soul" to remove a curse; that innocence, rather than being exploited, keeps undoing evil instead. And a boss who is otherwise greedy still travels into a dark, frightening underworld to rescue the one he's responsible for — a small, cartoonish echo of a much bigger rescue.

The film doesn't distort so much as decorate: its underworld is populated by ghosts, a cursed pirate captain, and scary creatures, which is standard spooky-adventure fare rather than anything doctrinally troubling, but it's worth knowing before you go. The humor leans crude in places — plenty of "butt" jokes and a couple of scatological gags — which is a taste issue more than a worldview one, but it's part of what earns the caution rating.

Underneath the silliness is a longing every viewer, young or old, recognizes: to be rescued, and to be rescued not because we earned it, but because someone loved us enough to go looking. Scripture says it plainer than any cartoon can: "For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost" (Luke 19:10).

This is SpongeBob at his best and most surprising — silly enough for the fans, sincere enough to sneak in a rescue story worth talking about at dinner. It earns its caution honestly, with scary creatures and crude humor that aren't for the youngest viewers, but for older kids and adults, there's real laughter and real heart here. Same answer we opened with: worth the trip — older children and adults.