How did they mess up this badly with this?
I am a fan of Scooby Doo. I used to watch the original show a lot when I was younger and was always excited when I had access to Boomerang. The original Scooby Doo cartoon is amazing. It has beautiful atmosphere, awesome creatures, clever writing and it was actually scary. Scooby Doo has seen adaption to adaption- to varying results. I haven't seen much of Cartoon Network's Mystery Inc but what I have seen of it has been really good. Then there was Shaggy and Scooby Doo Get a Clue- which I won't lie I loved when I was a kid but it's BAD.
A part of me would rather watch that then this soulless product of a film. When this film first started I thought I was gonna really enjoy it. They set up a really nice bond with Scooby and Shaggy. The dialogue was quippy and clever and the haunted house stuff was awesome. This film takes a really weird direction and decides the whole thing is gonna be a superhero movie? Yeah, there's hardly any ghouls and ghosts. No scares whatsoever. No atmosphere. There's nothing but just explosions, chases and pop culture references. It has absolutely no soul and misunderstands the charm of what makes Scooby Doo such a fun show to begin with.
This movie is more concerned about introducing clever tie ins with Hannah Barbara and making a universe then actually telling a story that makes any sense. I could make better sense of the film Tammy the T-Rex then this. Honestly- plot revelations were made in this movie and I had no idea what was going on. This film is harder to keep up with then Inception. The writing is just abysmal and the storytelling is just horrendous. There's no real clever payoff and no real stakes to be found here. It's all inoffensive fluff that exists to keep kids entertained for 90 minutes. Look- Disney Plus exists with hundreds of animated kids movies a whole lot better then this and it's like 7.99 a month. If you are making entertainment for children- how about you actually challenge them for once? The bar has been set. Heck, the bar was set by your own studio in 2014 with The LEGO Movie- a real thoughtful and creative film about the importance of creativity to begin with.
This movie isn't about anything but just "yay friendship". Any sort of easy to understand moral in this film is explained directly to the audience just in case you were too stupid to pick up on it. I'm just utterly floored by this movie.
The films soundtrack is a collection of really crappy hip hop music you would hear on the radio probably. It is only used to fill in dead air and everytime one of these songs comes up it kills any sort of atmosphere the movie could have had. It's so trendy and it's such a 2020 movie that this will hold up terribly with time. Movies can reference our modern culture in unique and funny ways. It's been done, just look at Bo Burnham's excellent film Eighth Grade. This just uses a character saying "hashtag" or "dabbing" as its joke with no sense of irony to it. It's very cringe inducing.
The biggest sin of this movie is after the first fifteen minutes of the film it no longer feels like a Scooby Doo movie. Towards the end of the film- the Mystery Gang get a new case to stop a ghost pirate and like, why wasn't this our movie? That sounds awesome. Not to mention, the end credits display this beautiful artwork of the Mystery Gang solving different mysteries and it looks great. Why not have this be your movie? Heck, there is no mystery in this movie! How do you make a Scooby Doo movie with no mysteries in it? How? This has to be a joke right? How do you get the plot of a Scooby Doo movie and make it a Superhero movie and not a creepy ghost mystery? I just don't understand what anyone was thinking! Warner Bros Animation is better than this!
It's one of those films that I feel like should have existed in the 2000's when the suit and ties didn't understand what made something popular so they just stuffed in everything they could think was relevant. This is a film that only exists to be a product. As much as I love all the clever easter eggs- that should be an after thought. You should be focused on making a good movie that actually respects and understands the source material while doing something new with it. This film does something new with Scooby Doo, but something genuinely no one asked for.
After the first fifteen minutes- there's nothing going for this movie but a few clever quippy lines. There's no story to be found here and it just doesn't resonate at all. It only exists to be a distraction and honestly- in 2020 we need to be showing kids thoughtful entertainment that entertains them and also makes them think. This is easily one of the most disappointing films of the year.
