Rating: PG
Runtime: 1 hour, 34 minutes
Director: Tony Cervone
Quick Impressions:
Like most people, we don’t get out much anymore. We haven’t even been watching many movies at home. In fact, for the past few weeks, we’ve hardly watched anything but Jeopardy! and Scooby-Doo.
Our family loves Scooby-Doo. It’s one of the few shows that entertains all three kids (ages 17, 11, and almost 5). We like all incarnations of the show, but we’re particularly in love with Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, which we just finished re-bingeing with glee last weekend. Mystery Incorporated I can recommend without reservation even to adults. (In fact, I’ve done that so much lately, that my sister recently teased, “Do you work for Scooby-Doo?”)
As for Scoob!, none of us was crazy about the idea of someone other than Casey Kasem or Matthew Lillard voicing Shaggy, but enthusiasm for the subject compelled us to see the movie anyway, and we sort of enjoyed it. (If nothing else, it prompted us to watch Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines, and now my four-year-old won’t stop tormenting his sister with theme song. “Stop the pigeon! Stop the pigeon!”)
The Good:
Scoob! isn’t always satisfying, but it has a strong start, a big finish, and enough references to classic Hanna-Barbera cartoons to awaken a pleasant nostalgia.
“It’s been years since I thought about Dastardly and Muttley!” my mother remarked after the movie. She added in concern, “You didn’t like it? I liked it.”
I wouldn’t say I didn’t like it. In fact, the beginning was far stronger than I expected. Our introduction to young Shaggy (voiced by Iain Armitage who plays Young Sheldon) and Scooby is surprisingly sweet. True, it has a ripped-straight-from-Annie feel, but I loved the 1982 movie Annie when I was little, so you’ll get no complaints from me there.
Armitage is perfect in the role, and words cannot express how pleased I was to hear Frank Welker voicing Scooby-Doo. Welker’s trap-happy Fred Jones is hands down my favorite character in Mystery Incorporated. In fact, I’ve loved the direction Fred’s character has taken in all post 2000 era Scooby-Doo projects. Fred just keeps getting funnier and funnier, surprising since the Fred of the original series was always so dull and bland. Then I made a remarkable discovery. When my daughter and I checked out What Is The Story of Scooby-Doo? from our local library, I learned that Welker originated the role of Fred Jones back in 1969! I was stunned to learn Welker had even been working that long. I first became aware of him as Kermit on Muppet Babies, my Saturday morning obsession of the 1980s. I’ve been aware of Welker’s work since then. (He’s also Curious George, among countless other roles.) But I had no idea that he had originated Fred. And since Don Messick stopped voicing Scooby-Doo, Welker has been playing both Fred and Scooby in basically every show until now. I’m pleased that he was involved in this project. His Scooby-Doo is actually quite different from Messick’s, but you don’t notice the differences unless you go back and watch the old cartoons.
Since I’m such a Fred fan, I was skeptical of Zac Efron taking on the role, but I liked his interpretation of Fred. He’s not the Fred I know and love, but Efron puts a perfectly respectable and entertaining spin on the character. In general, Scoob! invites us to remember the first season of the original series, see this film as a spin on that, and simply forget all the other Scooby-Doo projects that came between. Viewed in this way, Efron’s Fred is much more entertaining than original Fred (though nothing touches the way Welker’s Fred has delightfully shifted from dull straight man to hilarious scene stealer in recent years. Welker’s funny Fred is also more sympathetic and complicated than Efron’s Fred. Still, Efron’s Fred works.) I liked his performance and the movie’s take on the character (if you consider it an enhancement of the cardboard original).
In one area, Scoob! even improves on Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated. That show is amazing, but it sort of sidelines the titular character. Here, Scooby-Doo himself is back in the spotlight. Both the movie’s and the villain’s plots center on Scooby. He is the star. Not only is he the focus of the movie’s epic finale, but early on, we get a delightful scene of Shaggy and Scooby distracting the “monster” through make-believe which eventually goes wrong. They aren’t able to sustain their distraction because of a crisis within the make-believe world of their pretended skit. This is classic Scooby-Doo stuff, and it was nice to see here.
Velma and Daphne get sidelined a bit, but Gina Rodriguez and Amanda Seyfried give solid performances and are given some good lines (just too few of them). I’d be happy to see more of their interpretations of these characters. (My son may be a harder sell, though. Every time “the gang” was onscreen, he would narrow his eyes and demand, “Why does everybody sound so weird in this movie except for Scooby-Doo?” And I’ll admit, I feel his pain. I got used to Mindy Cohn’s excellent Velma and really bristled when she stopped voicing her a few years ago. Grey Griffin’s Daphne is close to my heart, too. But I’m willing to give Seyfried and Rodriguez a chance.)
Instead of going with an extended Scooby-Doo episode plot, Scoob! opts to widen the scope and bring in a bunch of other old Hanna-Barbera characters…sort of. Instead of Blue Falcon and Dynomutt, we get Dynomutt and Blue Falcon’s insecure adult son Brian, gamely voiced by Mark Wahlberg. Though I personally would have preferred to watch the usual gang driving around in the Mystery Machine, solving a typical caper, I did enjoy Wahlberg’s performance. He has a flare for comedy, and his character highlights some key morals of the story, lessons that children might find legitimately useful. I’ve never heard Dynomutt sound like Ken Jeong before, but Ken Jeong is funny, so I got over that pretty quickly. (It helps that I have no particular emotional investment in Dynomutt.) Kiersey Clemons is also good as Dee Dee Skyes, though I wish I knew more about the character. She gets more screentime than Velma or Daphne, but in all that time, we don’t learn much about her. Tracy Morgan also gets a brief role as Captain Caveman, and I was happy to see (and hear) the actor and the character (even if that portion of the film is not particularly strong).
Jason Isaacs makes a dashing Dick Dastardly, adding a certain wicked gravitas to a character I always (fondly) remember as sounding like Gargamel. Paul Winchell’s distinctive voice always sounded more ridiculous than menacing, but Isaacs manages to make Dastardly slightly ridiculous in a different way, and the writers and animators do their part, too. A running joke of Dastardly appearing everywhere in disguise almost works and is an excellent way of tying two Hanna-Barbera franchises together.
Simon Cowell shows up in a cameo, a fun nod to the star-laden Scooby-Doos of the 1970s. I wish the movie had leaned into this a bit more.
Best Scene:
“The beginning was the best,” my daughter declared, “when Shaggy met Scooby. They’re both so sweet.”
I agree. I also loved the discussion in the Mystery Machine, featuring Fred, Daphne, and Velma getting their first look at the villain. (That image of him is surprisingly hilarious.)
Best Scene Visually:
Early on, Scoob! offers us a musical montage of the young characters growing up which soon becomes a recreation of the original series credits. We all liked that, a nice nod to Scooby-Doo history.
Best Action Sequence:
My son was so taken with the film’s final action sequence. To avoid spoilers, I’ll edit his comments. He declared that he loved one character introduced late because of a certain anatomical oddity. (This is yet another iconic character, but certainly not one I usually associate with Hanna-Barbera.) I, too, liked the color scheme and sheer grandness of these late scenes and began to perk up a bit when the last act of the movie began.
For me, the bowling alley escapade is probably the strongest action sequence, largely because of that Shaggy-and-Scooby-Distract-the-“Monster” bit. I will acknowledge, however, that the scene on the roller coaster track would have played much better in a movie theater.
The Negatives:
At a certain point near the middle of Scoob!, I began to realize, “I’m not enjoying this. Instead of watching a mystery unravel, I’m watching the whole movie unravel. This isn’t making me happy, and realizing that makes me depressed.” The middle of movie is conspicuously muddled and showcases a number of scenes designed to fill a movie screen (and time). These action set pieces all want us to track motion that spans the screen. On a movie screen, such moments would probably be impressive (or at least engaging). On a television screen, they just look like filler designed to distract us from the fact that narrative progress has stalled. (It’s more an issue of too much happening than not enough.)
What made me saddest, I think, is something that isn’t Scoob!‘s fault. Instead, I blame COVID-19. Intended as a theatrical release, Scoob! would have been greatly enhanced by the experience of buying the overpriced popcorn, getting a brain freeze from the Icees, and whispering, “Shhh!” to my son over and over again in the dark. I am positive that the distraction of a theater full of noisy, restless children (including my own) would have masked many of Scoob!‘s shortcomings. Yes, the middle of the movie is weak, but when we took the kids to Coco, we didn’t even see the middle of the movie because my youngest dropped something under his seat and would not calm down until we found it! My husband and I took turns keeping him quiet and crawling around on our hands and knees, groping blindly in the darkness. (This harrowing process actually took about five minutes, but I promise you, it felt like 900 years!)
Lately, I keep sighing, “There are too many distractions at home! I miss going to the theater to see movies!” But in this case, I found myself missing the experience of missing the movie! I always go easy on children’s films because I’m usually trying to watch the movie and my son at the same time. Plus, at a film like Scoob!, there would be dozens of noisy little kids causing chaos in the movie theater audience. Possibly, Scoob! was made with that in mind. Chatter, chaos, and concessions would cover so many of Scoob!‘s glaring flaws. And surely I can’t blame Scoob! for my lingering sadness about not being able to go to the movie theater.
I do blame the movie for not casting Matthew Lillard as Shaggy. Maybe he didn’t want to do it. Maybe the idea was to reboot with a fresh cast and let a new generation of kids get to know Shaggy with a completely different voice. All I know is, I marveled at the excellent casting of Lillard in those live-action movies and then rejoiced when he took over voicing the animated Shaggy. Kasey Casem’s voice is so wonderfully distinctive, and he voiced Shaggy for decades. As a Scooby-Doo fan, I felt tremendous relief when Lillard managed to mimic the voice so well.
I like Will Forte as an actor. He was quite versatile on Saturday Night Live and gave an excellent dramatic performance in Nebraska. But I just could not embrace his Shaggy. I tried. I really tried. The way he voiced the character didn’t work for me at all. He just sounded wrong. (My husband cited this as his #1 complaint about the movie, and my daughter chimed in her agreement immediately.) Every time Forte spoke, I remembered that SNL sketch where his character goes trick-or-treating because he’s legally required to disclose his status as a sex offender to his new neighbors. I could never shake that memory. Believe me, I tried. Since childhood, I’ve had a hang-up about beloved characters suddenly having “the wrong” voices, and as an adult, I focus on fighting against that tendency. But even when consciously making an effort to give Forte’s performance as Shaggy a chance, I just could not make it work for me.
I also think that Velma and Daphne are not given enough character development and material.
In general, the film has a number of funny jokes and lots of great nods to how Scooby-Doo has always worked. (“He led them to an abandoned amusement park! Haha!” “Oh! He’s wearing a mask! Of course!”) But the movie lacks the narrative tension necessary to hold these moments together. The beginning and ending are actually pretty good (especially for children), but the middle is muddled mess. It’s not horrible, but it could be so much better. Most of the television episodes and direct-to-video movies are significantly better, so audiences who love Scooby-Doo will expect more from a big screen movie released by a major studio.
Of course, if you forget about the iconic characters and franchise and just say, “Hey, it’s an animated film for children,” Scoob! becomes far less disappointing. Yes, I’ve seen better kids’ movies, but I’ve also seen far, far worse. Scoob! does offer helpful life lessons for children, delivered in a palatable way, and a fair sprinkling of fun. And it’s an improvement over the two live action movies of the early 2000s. Kids should like it. My four-year-old watched pretty attentively, and movies are not his thing. Of course, after the movie was over, we turned on the 80s series A Pup Named Scooby-Doo, never my favorite, and I thought immediately, “I never realized how good this is!” We watched it for three hours, and my daughter gushed, “Oh! I wish I had grown up in the 80s!”
My mother, however, absolutely loved Scoob!. “I got to see Dick Dastardly and Muttley again!” she gushed. “They were constantly pulling off people’s masks! For the first time, I learned about ketchup leather!” She was really intrigued by the ketchup leather. I’m expecting to be treated to a home cooked meal of ketchup leather sandwiches any day now!
Overall:
Scoob! is not my favorite revisiting of these beloved characters, but it does have some funny moments, upbeat music, and eye-pleasing animation. Go ahead and watch it. Then if you’re looking for some really entertaining Scooby-Doo, check out Mystery Incorporated and learn about the horrors of “Char Gar Gothakon: the Beast That Hath No Name.” (Harlan Ellison plays himself in that episode! Jinkies!)