Scoob! (2020)

New Scooby Doo movies are constantly released but it's been a while since one was made for the big screen. Sure COVID got in the way of releasing Scoob! in cinemas but it still arrived. It's a mix of good and not so good, in its attempt to capture all that is Scooby-Doo while also launching a connected Hanna Barbera CGI animated universe. Mostly I just let myself sit back and enjoy it even when it wasn't quite hitting the mark.

Scoob! attempts to tell the story of how Shaggy and Scooby met, then met the rest of of Mystery Inc. and then they get to meet other characters from the HB catalogue like The Blue Falcon and Captain Caveman. This approach, using Dick Dastardly as the villain for example, prevents the film from being an authentic Scooby-Doo style story in that there isn't the typical it's-all-some-guy-in-a-mask reveal. Instead this film has full on science fiction and fantasy elements from Cerberus being released from the underworld and superheroic technological wizardry which really isn't Scooby-Doo's vibe. But that's doesn't stop the film from trying to reference all things Doo. There is even a funny mask-pulling-off moment which subverts the usual mask gimmick at the end. Instead of being truer to the Doo aesthetic the film is interested in introducing Dynomutt and the Blue Falcoln as well as Captain Caveman. I see the desire to spin off stories from those characters, and maybe even others, coming from this.

The other u-turn the film takes is that it is very centred on creating a heart strings pulling film about the relationship between Scooby and Shaggy (as well as the other friends). But the film sort of fumbles this as it mixes that with a on the nose, sarcastic lampooning of itself by playing into each character's cliches. Fred, Velma, and Daphne are all caricatures and the jokes about them feel tired and... well... cliched. So it is trying to be both sentimental and ironic at the same time which ends up cancelling each other out. All of this feels like the film is trying to be too many things all at once, little of it working...

But...

I found myself enjoying it anyway. The story, while random and somewhat lost, was entertaining enough and the humour, while sometimes forced, made me laugh a lot. And there was something nostalgic about seeing these characters come together all in one place. It made me crave a Laff-a-Lympics movie. Maybe Scoob! should have told a more straight up Mystery Inc. origin story that stayed truer to the original feel. Maybe it should have waited for sequels to introduce other characters and elements to build this world. And maybe someone should have realized Will Forte doesn't make a good Shaggy. But none of that happened, and I ended up enjoying Scoob! for a rather forgettable but entertaining entry into the world of Scooby-Doo.

And maybe that's okay.

Scoob!
Starring: Frank Welker, Will Forte, Gina Rodriguez, Zac Efron, Amanda Seyfried, Mark Wahlberg, Jason Isaacs, Ken Jeong, Tracy Morgan
Director: Tony Cervone
Writers: Adam Sztykiel, Jack Donaldson, Derek Elliot, Matt Lieberman