Hold your sea snails: The SpongeBob Movie is pure Bikini Bottom bonkers

The holidays: a time for questionable sweaters, overambitious baking projects and cinematic escapes.  Enter The SpongeBob Movie: The Search for SquarePants, a title as absurd as the plot.  My journey began not in a theater but at Burger King, where a SpongeBob-themed meal (complete with square neon yellow bread and a pineapple drink that may or may not have opened a wormhole) sealed my fate.  The film itself?  A delightful fever dream wrapped in seaweed and sprinkled with the chaotic whimsy that only Bikini Bottom can deliver.  SpongeBob, of course, was his usual optimistic porous self.  A sponge with a belief in the goodness of the universe which is both inspiring and mildly concerning. The jokes were cute and quite clever including a nod to Davy Jones’ locker that had me chuckling harder than I’d like to admit.  However, the real virtuoso of this film was Mark Hamill as The Flying Dutchman.  Hamill cackled with a gusto that could make Darth Vader reconsider his life choices.  His performance was so good I half-expected him to demand Luke Skywalker’s hand as payment.  Finally, let’s talk about that beachside roller coaster scene.  Sadly, it looked like it was storyboarded on the back of a napkin.  Charming for a 20-minute television episode but visually disappointing when projected on a big screen.  Nevertheless, this movie was like visiting an old friend who hasn’t changed a bit: fun, warmhearted and exactly what you need sometimes.