Search for SquarePants kinda answers a question that some parents might’ve grumbled while watching the show: When is SpongeBob going to grow up? He’s a childish sponge creature, but has his own house and job as a fry cook. Well, this film addresses the questioning of growing up, but with a lesson more beneficial for today’s kids who may be getting the wrong guidance. It’d be easy to scoff at SpongeBob, the character and show, as being something childish, but the truth is, many of us millennials kept watching the cartoon well into adulthood.

The good news is that the film doesn’t fall into the familiar satire of manosphere influencers, but is a more suitable adventure for the silly sponge. Once more reprised with exuberance by Tom Kenny, SpongeBob’s latest exuberant celebration is something kids can relate to: growing a little taller. The happy-go-lucky rectangle views himself as a big guy, able to do one of the first things most kids desire when they get a little taller: ride the tallest rollercoaster. But there’s still a fear the yellow lad harbors for the heights, something he views as a roadblock to essentially becoming a man.

Granting some exaggerated advice to SpongeBob is his employer, Mr. Krabs (Clancy Brown), telling the boy tales of his days as a swashbuckling pirate. Desiring that rugged status for himself, SpongeBob enlists the help of the ghost pirate, The Flying Dutchman, voiced with gritty glee by Mark Hamill. With the goofy Patrick (Bill Fagerbakke) by his side, the sponge who wants to be a big guy joins the Dutchman on a trip to the underworld, where he’ll face the challenges of being a swashbuckler…or so he thinks. Realizing Krabs has led the boy astray, the greedy employer ventures off to save his most faithful employee from falling for the same traps of what it means to be an adult.

From the way I described the story, it might sound like a daring adventure with a mature focus. Relax, kids, all the juvenile slapstick and repetitive humor is intact. The SpongeBob hallmarks of slapping butts, stretchy limbs, and Ren & Stimpy-style close-ups are all still here, preventing the feature-film-favoring CGI from looking stiffer than the show’s tried-and-true traditional animation. The speedy pacing is still present, where even if the gags don’t generate a laugh, there’s always a smile for the next one not far behind. There’s an admirable cleverness to how the film weaves its wild exaggerations and colorful depictions of the underworld, even if it struggles to find much for the grumpy Squidward (Rodger Bumpass) to do on this journey, aside from jazzing it up with some underworld sirens.

I’m once again forced to find favor with the kid audience because there are a few barnacles on this old vessel, and not the absurdly gross ones the show would zoom in on. A little of juvenile gags goes a long way, especially for the many that rely on repetition. Most of the scatalogical jokes are spread out enough so that the film can get some decent mileage out of SpongeBob pooping a brick. I wish there were more subversive humor for the adults; the dig at Paramount about mandated characters was only mildly amusing. Past SpongeBob movies had a better balance for that kind of comedy and even better pacing in the live-action portion of the picture, which tries and almost succeeds to keep the madcap nature going.

Search for SquarePants might not harbor the sponge’s finest funnies, but it still has some charm and even a good message that never comes off corny. I can’t say with certainty that it’ll appease the grown-up audience who has either grown jaded with the fading appeal of SpongeBob or never grew up watching the Nickelodeon show juggernaut. What I can say is that the film never annoyed or aggravated me, and the clear themes of dismantling conceptions of maturity were woven into this silly film beautifully. It’s a healthy dose of thoughtful storytelling that makes it a little easier to enjoy the laughs kids get from the smacking of rumps and the dumb repetition of “string cheese.”