Scoob! – ★★✩✩✩

Certificate – PG
Directed By – Tony Cervone
Starring (Voiced By) – Will Forte, Jason Isaacs, Mark Walhberg, Zac Efron, Amanda Seyfried, Gina Rodriguez, Kiersey Clemons, Ken Jeong, Tracy Morgan.
Running Time – 93 Minutes (1 Hour 33 Minutes)

I’ve been a Scooby-Doo fan since I was a kid and have seen pretty much every version from the good (Mystery Incorporated, Be Cool, Where Are You) to the awful (Guess Who, The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo).

So I was pretty excited to see Scoob return to the big screen after 16 years away. I was even more excited as this was the kick start for a Hanna-Barbera universe, so we could see Wacky Races make their big-screen debut.

What Is Scoob! About?

Scoob! reveals the never-before-told story of Scooby’s origins, how Scooby (Welker) and Shaggy (Forte) first met and joined Fred (Efron), Velma (Rodriguez) and Daphne (Seyfried) to form Mystery Inc. Now, racing across the globe in their biggest and most challenging mystery ever, the gang will discover Scooby’s secret legacy and epic destiny.

Is It Any Good?

If you have kids or a mega fan, then you’ll love this film or at least find it incredibly enjoyable.

However, I have to admit I was disappointed to the point it annoyed me and was sad because it could’ve been so much more.

Let me focus on the good things. The animation is stunning, and every artist deserves all our praises because if you look at Scooby himself, you can see they wanted to make it close to a real dog as animation would allow them.

Then there’s a cracking tribute at the beginning of the movie.

Meanwhile, there are plenty of Scooby and Hanna-Barbera references throughout the film to keep the old viewer interested and get some enjoyment.

As for the voice cast, getting near the end, I started to get used to Efron, Seyfried and Rodriguez as the mystery trio and think would get better if given another chance.

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It has to be said that Isaacs is the MVP as Dick Dastardly as he brings a lot of the old characteristics as you can tell he was having a great time and did laugh when he introduced himself to Scooby.

On the other hand, the most reliable team were the Blue Falcon crew, whenever Clemons’ Dee Dee Skyes, Jeong’s Dynomutt and especially Wahlberg as Blue Falcon. It felt fun like an old Hanna-Barbera TV show and would love to see them in a movie themselves as they jelled so well.

I enjoyed seeing Jeong being the straight man next to the fun-loving idiot of Wahlberg.

Anything Bad About The Film?

My annoys started from the beginning as sadly Forte should never have voiced Shaggy, it just never worked, and the friendship narrative never entirely holds you. Compared to what I believe Matthew Lillard would’ve done and it was a massive mistake Warner Bros never cast him.

The other voice is Morgan’s Captain Caveman as the character isn’t fluent in English, Caveman mumbles a lot and shouts CAPTAIN CAVVVVVVEEEEEEMMMAAAANNNN!!! It would’ve worked more comedically if Scoob was able to translate Caveman’s mumbles to they were able to understand him.

The biggest disappointment is that not one of the writers understood Scooby-Doo as they were too busy focusing on building the universe and making a globe adventure instead of making it a buddy movie within a mystery thriller.

The crazy thing they could’ve done the universe building and global adventure without focusing issues between Mystery inc. How To Train Your Dragon is a perfect example of it. Hell, even Mystery Incorporated does it wonderfully.

Elsewhere, apart from a couple of times the jokes never land, and again they could’ve looked at their own material with Be Cool as it’s some of the most childish, funny humour in the franchise.

Then you have all the cultural references to Tinder, Instagram and the film starts with California Love!!! for a kids movie!!

All I can add is if WB wants to make another, please get people in who have worked on Mystery Incorporated and Be Cool to write the script and director because you’ll get a much stronger movie.

Verdict

Kids and die-hards will enjoy this otherwise crap movie. Enjoyment can be found in the Blue Falcon crew and Isaacs’ Dastardly, but apart from that wait until this movie is cheaper to see it.