{"id":33207,"date":"2020-05-18T00:02:00","date_gmt":"2020-05-18T04:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=33207"},"modified":"2020-05-16T19:00:46","modified_gmt":"2020-05-16T23:00:46","slug":"scoob-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2020\/05\/18\/scoob-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"Scoob! (2020)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I\u2019d be lying if I said that I\u2019m the biggest Scooby Doo fan around. Hell, I\u2019m still stunned that Hanna Barbera has placed so much stock in the franchise for so many decades, but I digress. I had high hopes going in to \u201cScoob!\u201d as every generation is introduced to Scooby Doo once again in some new form, and \u201cScoob!\u201d seemed like the right avenue. Not only does it give us a new vision of Scooby Doo, but it makes tweaks to the mythos that I liked, while also establishing a shared Hanna Barbera universe. And yet, at the end of it all, I\u2019d still rather have seen \u201cScooby Doo on Zombie Island\u201d or \u201cScooby Doo and the Witch\u2019s Ghost,\u201d again.<\/p>\n

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Meeting on Venice Beach when they were young, lonely Shaggy (Will Forte) and pup Scooby-Doo (Frank Welker) become inseparable, sharing a love of madcap antics and food. After an incident on Halloween, the pair befriends the trio of Fred (Zac Efron), Velma (Gina Rodriguez), and Daphne (Amanda Seyfried), and a trek in to a haunted house sparks their love for solving mysteries. With high aspirations for Mysteries Inc. the group is targeted by the evil Dick Dastardly (Jason Isaacs). While evading his horde of intelligent robots, and minions, the group garners the help of the heroic trio of Blue Falcon (Mark Wahlberg), Dynomutt (Ken Jeong), and Dee Dee Sykes (Kiersey Clemons).<\/p>\n

\u201cScooby Doo\u201d has always thrived on simplicity and the very easy goals of foiling ghosts and beating the bad guys, so it\u2019s disappointing to go in to \u201cScoob!\u201d with such an unnecessarily convoluted storyline. There\u2019s stuff about canine skulls, and robots, and a special portal only Scooby can open, and ancient gold, and Blue Falcon trying to recruit Scooby to his team, et al. It\u2019s shockingly hard to follow for a premise that\u2019s always been mainly about teens foiling land barons and smugglers. There\u2019s even a cameo from Simon Cowell that doesn\u2019t amount to much at the end of the day. That said, \u201cScoob!\u201d is at least going for a new direction and tweaking what doesn\u2019t work, while improving what does (Velma is not Latinx? Love it!).<\/p>\n

The improvements on the characters of Freddy, Daphne, and Velma make them less disposable side-characters while the screenwriters offer up a ton of nods to Hanna Barbera properties. There are nods to \u201cA Pup Named Scooby Doo,\u201d Blue Falcon and Dyno Mutt are pretty much in the entire film, there\u2019s a cameo from Captain Caveman, and the goal seems to basically be laying the groundwork for a shared cinematic universe. I\u2019m not against a Hanna Barbera shared universe if done well (feature length \u201cFrankenstein Jr.\u201d reboot, please!), but I wish \u201cScoob!\u201d had much more focus on the characters and mystery solving and less on the fan service.<\/p>\n

The movie is incredibly unfocused, often feeling messy and disjointed. The time jumps, blaring soundtrack and lack of a more menacing foe only subtracts from the film\u2019s inherent quality. By the time the film reaches the home stretch, it pretty much switches to auto drive with a loud, forgettable resolution, with subtle promises of more antics in Hanna Barbera Land. With great animation, a stellar voice cast, and sharp humor, \u201cScoob!\u201d is an okay diversion, even if the meddling teens have been in better films.<\/p>\n

Now Available for Rent or Purchase on a variety of Digital formats, and Video on Demand.<\/strong><\/p>\n