Mark Reviews Movies: SCOOB!

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Review by Mark Dujsik | May 15, 2020

"That was just a real estate developer with a couple of flashlights and a sound effects machine," points out the brain of the operation, as the mystery-solving gang tries to figure out how to defeat a monster. The gang, of course, is Mystery, Inc., the quartet of young adults with distinct personalities and a talking dog named Scooby-Doo. They were the stars of a cartoon that began in 1969 and has remained popular enough over the decades that now we get Scoob!, a computer-animated adventure that seems more determined to start a new, expanded franchise than to figure out and connect to what made these characters as lasting as they have been.

It's likely that everybody knows the basic premise of the old cartoon. The gang would be assigned a mystery to solve, usually involving some assumed supernatural force. By a combination of smarts and dumb luck, they'd find the answer, and what seemed like some ghoul or ghost or monster would just turn out to be a crafty, opportunistic villain. The meddling kids made sure the bad guy didn't get away with it, and in doing so, they reminded the audience that there's always a rational explanation for even the most superficially unnatural problems.

We get a sense of that, as well as some genuine heart, in this movie's prologue, which serves as a brief origin story of how the mystery-solvers came together. Scooby-Doo (voice of Frank Welker, who has provided his vocal talents for the franchise since its inception), a stray Great Dane pup, meets Shaggy (voiced by Will Forte as an adult and by Iain Armitage as a kid), a lonely kid who takes the idea of "making friends" with pathetic literalism—making faces on a couple of piles of sand and talking to them. The boy and dog become fast friends, and soon they meet the rest of the crew, solving the mystery of a haunted house in town that's occupied by a thief, not a ghost.

There's a sweet, sincere sense of nostalgia to these opening scenes, regardless of one's investment in the original show or its proceeding incarnations. After a montage of the gang's adventures, the sweetness and the sincerity fade. Mystery, Inc.—made up of Shaggy, Scooby, the brainy Velma (voice of Gina Rodriguez), the vapid Fred (voice of Zac Efron), and the empathetic Daphne (voice of Amanda Seyfried)—needs to becomes a legitimate business to keep up with its members' financial obligations. Simon Cowell (voicing himself) would be happy to invest, as long as the gang drops the food-obsessed, easily distracted pair of Shaggy and Scooby.

Something could have been made of this setup by the movie's four screenwriters (Matt Lieberman, Adam Sztykiel, Jack Donaldson, and Derek Elliott)—something about the gang trying to stick to its roots while feeling the temptation of money and the influence of interests who think they know better. Instead, the group separates.

Shaggy and Scooby team up with Blue Falcon (voice of Mark Wahlberg), the "large, adult son" of a famous and now-retired superhero of the same name, as well as his sidekick dog Dynomutt (voice of Ken Jeong) and pilot Dee Dee Skyes (voice of Kiersey Clemons)—both of whom do most of the hero-work. The remaining trio go searching for their friends. All of them learn about the machinations of Dick Dastardly (voice of Jason Isaacs), a mustachioed villain looking for the skulls of a mythical three-headed monster, in order to unlock the secret treasure vault of Alexander the Great.

The reason, perhaps, that the filmmakers didn't take advantage of the early story setup—of how money and corporate obligations might corrupt the gang's simple, genuine goals—is that they were more than comfortable with dismissing these characters and the basic premise of the source material on their own. This adventure is designed to be bigger, louder, more expansive, and more action-oriented than likely any Scooby-Doo adventure before it.

There's a large cast of characters, pulled out of the Hanna-Barbera library (In addition to the previously mentioned ones, Captain Caveman, voiced by Tracy Morgan, also appears). The gang gets into multiple chases, a few fights, and that climactic battle with a very real monster from the underworld, set against the backdrop of magically restored ancient ruins. The soundtrack is filled with popular music, and in between some innocent puns and old-fashioned slapstick gags, the characters make one pop-culture reference after another.

The screenwriters and director Tony Cervone are clearly trying to appeal to as wide an audience as possible, especially in framing the entire plot to connect to the current superhero craze. They might have done so, but in the process, Scoob! sacrifices too much of what made Scooby and his pals have such a long life. One just keeps thinking of that prologue, with its affection for the simplicity of the source material, and the movie that might have resulted, had the filmmakers stuck to what worked. They might have gotten away with it, too, if not for those meddling issues of universe-building, trend-grabbing, and the belief that everything has to be as big and loud as possible.

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