This movie version of the old cartoon show was a popular family (?) film this past summer. Scooby, Shaggy, Daphne, Velma, and Fred (a.k.a. Mystery Inc.) are mysteriously brought together again after a few years of mystery-solving retirement. They are all invited to an odd amusement park where people walk in as normal human beings and walk out as soul-less bodies possessed by monsters. The crew must solve the mystery while at the same time struggling with feelings of past resentment towards each other.
Scooby-Doo, the movie, takes quite a departure from Scooby-Doo the cartoon. The overall story is both uninteresting and crazy. It is also not very reminiscent of the cartoon. The cartoon had mysteries involving supposed ghosts or monsters that were later revealed as hoaxes. The movie has a bunch of real monsters and voodoo (no pun intended) practices that involve taking people's souls out of their bodies. These alterations do not add anything to the movie and actually are what mainly make it so crazy.
As for the characters, Scooby-Doo himself actually looks pretty good in computer graphics; and Matthew Lillard makes for a good Shaggy. Velma (played by Linda Cardellini) is passable enough, I suppose. But Sarah Michelle Gellar's Daphne is a rather annoying airhead, and Freddie Prinze Jr. as Fred is way too in love with himself to be very likeable.
The movie's humor, which isn't exactly uproariously hysterical anyway, is further marred by an abundance of crudeness that far surpasses the humor of Shrek. To begin with, there is an extended sequence in which Scooby and Shaggy engage in a belching/farting contest. This scene is gross, not funny, and over-all too much. Then there's the part where Scrappy-Doo, Scooby's nephew, urinates on Daphne, and Fred resents it because he doesn't like the idea of Scrappy marking his territory (if you're not disgusted yet, hang tight). But the climax in this crescendo of crudeness is a scene that involves Fred's soul ending up in Daphne's body by way of a voo-doo mishap. Fred (obessed guy that he is) brightens at the thought that he can "look at myself naked" and proceeds to take advantage of the episode by looking down the front of his/Daphne's shirt and indulging in other such sick actions. Why all of this degradation is present in a movie geared towards kids, I don't know. But it pretty much speaks for itself.
In conclusion, Scooby-Doo is an unenteraining and not very funny poor excuse for a family movie. This year has offered us several good family movies, but this is not one of them. Don't bother with Scooby-Doo. |
