Movie Review - Scooby Doo

[itsmedave]

Hi all!!!

 

 

 

 

 

I have already seen the new Scooby Doo movie starring my old college pal Matt Lillard. This is my very biased (grew up on the cartoon) review.

 

 

 

First, Matt does a SUPERB job. He looks, sounds, and acts just as Shaggy should. He is the star of this movie. The chick who plays Velma also does an outstanding job of bringing the cartoon character to life. These two (along with the animated Scooby) are enough reason to see the film.

 

 

 

Unfortunately, what surrounds them may be enough to keep the Freddie Prinze box office curse alive. Freddie is actually okay as...er, Freddie, but Sarah Michelle Gellar looks, sounds, and acts exactly like Sarah Michelle Gellar and nothing like Daphne. Also, the writers must have had no idea what to do with the Fred and Daphne characters, so they made new ones up which are nothing like the cartoon version. In the movie, Daphne is a vain to the extreme damsel in distress with 6 suitcases she carries at all times and whose major contribution (apart from being stuck up) is always getting captured and needing to be rescued. Now, Bangkok television being what it is, I have found myself watching quite a bit of the original series lately, and can't remember Daphne ever needing saving. Meanwhile, Fred has been turned into a pretty boy airhead with a need to be a star. While Velma was always the smartest in the cartoon, Fred was always right there intellectually. Here though he just makes mistakes and then takes the credit for Velma's ideas. Never happened in the show.

 

 

 

Velma is mostly left alone, except she's given an inferiority complex thanks to Fred and they all spend much of the movie angry at each other. Sad...

 

 

 

The other sad thing the movie does is fill itself with the lowest form of humor...bodily functions. Scooby and Shaggy have a belching contest, a farting contest, a monster showers them with oversized boogers, and Scrappy Doo pees all over Daphne. Was this really necessary?

 

 

 

On the positive side, there are a lot of clever ideas and jokes in the film (which I won't give away) and it's filled with bright colors and nifty special effects.

 

 

 

Rowan Atkinson (Mr. Bean) plays the "owner guy who might actually be the villian" role. He has some funny moments in then beginning and then has little else to do til the end.

 

 

 

Overall, there are some fun and truly dynamic performances by Matt and the Velma girl, but it could've been so much better. Here's hoping they lose teen idols Freddie and Sarah (who I love as Buffy) in the sequel and replace them with people who are actually willing to play the parts they're being paid to play.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[gobbledonk]

Dave,

 

 

 

I'm afraid that attending 'Scooby Doo' was already just behind Sly Stallones next movie in my 'Must See' list,but your review has put it in the 'if Sarah-Michelle gave me a ticket AND promised to blow me whilst I watched it' bag.

 

 

 

Still, I'm no judge - spent most of Spiderman hoping for another glimse of Kirsten Dunsts sensational bod. Hmmm, maybe that how it made $US600 million in its opening weekend

[Guest]

Good review....just got done seeing it about 4 hours ago. I have to agree with what you said. Id have to say that Shaggy and Scooby were the bright parts of the movie for me. The other characters werent much "in character".

[Palatkik]

I?m with Artiew on this one, although I wouldn?t mind being blown by Sarah-Michelle if I could put the bag on her head.

 

 

 

Was watching the Asian feed of Conan O?Brien last night that had a guest from this movie on. One bit of trivia mentioned was that of a lesbian and pot scene being cut from the final edit.