SPOILER-FREE REVIEW
A thoroughly generic film for kids, Scoob! doesn't quite get why its parent franchise is so compelling to begin with, despite offering the occasional good laugh.
If Scoob! was meant to be a Scooby Doo movie, I think someone should probably have told its director Tony Cervone. This film’s very existence is baffling. I don’t know who first conceived of this massive folly and I don’t know who decided to fund it, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it was somebody in Warner Bros’ marketing division wanting to cash in on the latest popular, but altogether fickle movie trends and make some profitable inroads with Gen Z. Think of Scooby Doo, and you probably think of four colourfully dressed teenage detectives and their dog roaming around in a beat-up hippie van unmasking men in monster suits and solving mysteries. Now imagine if you will, a Scooby Doo movie that features none of that. That, in a nutshell, is what Scoob! ends up being. Zoinks, right?
The first fifteen minutes, where Scooby and Shaggy meet for the first time and the gang solve their first mystery, offer a decent setup, all things considered. It’s all capped off by a flashy recreation of the intro sequence from the original TV series, accompanied by a great rendition of the classic theme song. So far, so good. But shortly after that, the film loses the plot both literally and figuratively, and things get crowded fast. The gang is joined by a few additions from the depths of Hanna-Barbera’s dusty archives, such as Blue Falcon, Captain Caveman and Dynomutt, at which point a new problem rears its head: not many kids will recognise them, and the film hardly caters to the adults in the audience who might. The presence of these characters pushes the film well outside the series’ traditional genres and triggers an identity crisis. It certainly doesn’t help matters that everyone involved has apparently forgotten that it was all supposed to be a simple gig about a bunch of teenagers solving mysteries. That core concept of Scooby Doo barely features in this film at all, and for all intents and purposes, it’s been replaced by a convoluted plot that splits the gang up and makes it difficult to keep track of where everyone is.
It mostly comes across as a poor attempt to modernise the franchise and attract new fans from Gen Z, but it’s a tough sell. The film tries hard to find a space in the current cultural zeitgeist by aping superhero films and Despicable Me, but that just makes it feel generic. Of course, the underlying ambition is to create a cinematic universe, sequels and spinoffs, but as a launching point, it’s a bit of a non-starter. No amount of EDM and references to Netflix, or seeing Mark Wahlberg’s Blue Falcon dab, will make it stand out. Nor will a star-studded cast of voice actors trying their best to make it work. That Matthew Lillard has been swapped out for Will Forte as the voice of Shaggy only serves to emphasise the disconnect between this film and the rest of the Scooby Doo franchise. You can’t quite shake the feeling that something’s gone wrong, especially when your characters don’t sound quite right. Classic voices are sorely missed.
It’s not even something you might find enjoyable in an ironic sort of way like the live-action movies from the 2000s. At least those can satisfy the demand for the campy humour of Noughties entertainment and the nostalgia associated with it. However, if there’s one good thing about Scoob!, it’s that it did make me laugh occasionally. Most of its jokes miss the mark, but there’s some refreshing meta humour, pop culture references and a few good gags; I cracked up hearing Jason Isaacs as villain Dick Dastardly, ranting at Scooby about pronouncing his name wrong, first insisting “I’m a dick, with a D” before screeching “Dick, Dick, Dick!” It’s silly like that, and those little moments mean the film isn’t a total disaster. Plus the new art style and animation both grow on you. 2D doesn’t get enough love these days, but the new neon-and-sunlight-soaked 3D design is a solid replacement, and the film goes a long way towards capturing the comic action of the series. There is however a frankly disturbing lack of supersized tower sandwiches.
So, it’s capable of entertaining your kids for a bit, as long as they don’t have anything else to compare it to. Just don’t expect them to love it, since it doesn’t stand out for any reason other than for being one of this month’s few lockdown video-on-demand offerings. Scoob! doesn’t make a good argument against tracking down old episodes and watching those instead. What’s new Scooby Doo? A lot, and not all of it is good.
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