The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants

The Elasticity of Innocence

In the grand theater of animated archetypes, there is perhaps no figure more resilient than the Fool. Not the jester who mocks the king, but the innocent who inadvertently exposes the absurdity of the world simply by existing within it. SpongeBob SquarePants has held this title for over a quarter of a century, a yellow beacon of unironic optimism. In *The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants* (2025), director Derek Drymon doesn’t try to reinvent this wheel; instead, he asks a more poignant question: What happens when the Fool tries to "grow up"?

The film’s inciting incident is delightfully trivial, a hallmark of the franchise’s best writing. SpongeBob wakes up to discover he has grown "36 clams"—roughly an inch—and decides he is finally a "Big Guy" capable of riding the terrifying Shipwreck roller coaster. It is a conflict of scale that feels microscopic to the viewer but titanic to the protagonist. When his courage falters, the narrative spirals into a mythological quest involving the Flying Dutchman (voiced with gleeful menace by Mark Hamill) and a journey to the "deepest depths" of the ocean.

Drymon, a veteran of the series’ golden age, understands that the medium is the message. Visually, *Search for SquarePants* distinguishes itself by leaning into a tactile, almost clay-like animation style. The characters squish, stretch, and flatten with a viscosity that recalls the Fleischer brothers or the more surreal moments of *Ren & Stimpy*. This "malleability" is not just a technical flourish; it is the film’s central visual metaphor. In the underworld sequences, where the environment turns hostile with three-headed birds and eldritch jellyfish, SpongeBob’s soft, porous body is his greatest asset. In a world of sharp edges and hard shells (personified by the literally armored Mr. Krabs), SpongeBob survives because he yields.

The film’s heart beats loudest in its deconstruction of masculinity and maturity. SpongeBob’s obsession with being a "Big Guy"—a term repeated with desperate frequency—is a touching reflection of the child’s desire for the perceived safety of adulthood. The script, penned by Pam Brady and Matt Lieberman, smartly juxtaposes SpongeBob’s performative toughness with the genuine, terrifying stakes of the Dutchman’s realm. There is a specific, widely discussed gag involving a "lucky brick" that captures this duality perfectly: it is a crude joke about fear, yes, but it also underscores the physical weight of the terror these characters are experiencing.

If there is a critique to be levied, it is that the film remains safely within the boundaries of its established playground. It lacks the subversive meta-narrative of *Sponge Out of Water* (2015) or the raw emotional novelty of the first 2004 film. However, in an era of cinema dominated by cynical deconstruction and multiverse nostalgia bait, there is something radically pure about this film’s refusal to be anything other than itself.

Ultimately, *Search for SquarePants* suggests that "growing up" is a scam. The resolution does not come from SpongeBob hardening his heart or developing a shell, but from accepting his own elasticity. He is soft, he is porous, and he is a child. Drymon’s film argues that in the deepest, darkest trenches of the sea—and perhaps life itself—it is not the strong who survive, but the absorbent.