Okay, readers, pop quiz from yours truly. You’re a Hollywood exec (sorry to insult you, but bear with me, I’m getting somewhere with this), and you help get a movie in to theaters that’s barely watchable, what do you do? Do you a) leave it alone to rot on shelves and move on? b) do you remake it? or c) do you give it a crappy sequel? If you chose A or B then you know nothing about Hollywood, because inevitably all this is is basically a crappy sequel to a crappy movie, the problem is while the first film was without a doubt crappy, it was mildly entertaining, but this, this is just brutal.
We’re forced to sit through the once again horrible acting from “actors” such as Freddie Prinze Jr (who still sucks), Sarah Michelle Gellar (who still sucked), along with Matthew Lillard (Who is even worse as Shaggy this time), along with some really bad performances which double this time out while being forced to sit through some obligatory celebrity cameos (if you want to call Ruban Studdard, and Pat O’ Brien celebrities) as the Scooby gang arrives to the opening of the Coolsville museum of monsters to chronicle the capturing of their monsters from the years past, but when one of the monsters actually comes to life, it’s up to the Scooby gang, whom were blamed for it, to clear their name and find out who or whom are behind the sudden re-animation of all the monsters they’ve caught.
I don’t see how anyone, even Scooby Doo fans, could really find anything worth even remotely liking with this movie, because within the flashing colors and mindless jokes, there’s just no plot here. What I explained was a concept, because trust me there is no plot whatsoever to be shown during this movie and what’s even worse, someone spent money to make sure this was made. Lots of crude jokes and mindless gags does not a movie make, and within all the glitz and colors it’s just like a Twinkie. Fluffy, sugary, but ultimately very empty. What’s worse is a lot of the movie derives from other movies, a big no-no that just screams laziness. The main villain who seemingly has no name comes out of nowhere without anyone noticing and looks a lot like a faux modernized version of the “Phantom of Paradise” and comes around every now and then to remind the audience “remember him?
He’s the point of the movie”, but really there is no point. With the climax explaining who the villain is, there’s really not a lot of sense for the villain’s actions throughout the movie. Why come out and announce yourself and challenge the Mystery Inc. gang when really all you can do is just put the monsters to life and go about your business, and was his main focus to from the Mystery Inc. gang or was there another plot at hand? Regardless, the questions are never answered, and from the beginning the writer makes it so obvious who or whom the main villain might be. It’s so obvious from the very beginning, that once you figure out who it is behind that silver mask, you quickly get the feeling that there’s no point in watching the rest of the movie, except to humor your children.
Regardless, the movie stumbles along with a lot of irritating and crude humor played for what used to be comedy. The writer can’t come up with anything even remotely original, so most of the tired gags rely on farting jokes and disgusting gross out jokes that desperately try to force a laugh from the audience. And if that doesn’t signal doom for the writers, most of the gags that don’t rely on toilet humor are usually really crappy to begin with from Shaggy and Scooby trying out different potions which supply different results, right down to the really unfunny and utterly senseless dance number halfway through. This doesn’t even look like it’s trying to tell a story but just ends up being a long line gags, puns, and carnage that have no real point or reason for existing other than to cash in on the original movie.
What’s makes this an even more challenging on the psyche situation is that the characters here are even more irritating than usual. Scooby Doo looks really weird and creepy this time around, it’s a wonder no one confused him for a monster, Lillard is horrible as Shaggy and is just mind-numbing, Prinze and Gellar have zero chemistry and don’t even try to act like their characters, and Velma is really annoying and most of the time doesn’t present the detective skills that make her character but is instead subjected to a really lame sub-plot with Seth Green as her love interest. One question: Why does Velma sound so nasal here? Is it a new method of actress Cardellini’s to improve her character? Because I have to say it didn’t help taking her character seriously when she sounded like Fran Drescher.
What further brings this film down the metaphoric crapper is that the climax where the monsters begin wreaking havoc on Coolsville is so utterly derivative and contrived from better films like the excellent “Ghostbusters”, that it’s very embarrassing, and where the hell are the police in this whole situation? Want an entertaining movie about a group of mismatched people that catch evil monsters and have a good time? Watch “Ghostbusters”, but put this in the backburner where it belongs. What’s to say that I haven’t already? This is trash with a capital C (as in crap) and one of the worst movies I’ve seen in years with horrible acting, plot holes galore, sloppy direction, and zero plot. Hard to believe crap like this qualifies as kids’ films these days.