I am hesitant to call Scoob! a cynical film because that implies a sense of insincerity on the part of the director, Tony Cervone, writers, Matt Lieberman, Adam Sztykiel, Jack Donaldson, and Derek Elliott, and all the other people who clearly put a ton of effort in bringing a film like this to life. However, many of the choices made in the film do indulge in some of the all too familiar tropes and beats that have defined a huge chunk of the superhero filled era of modern blockbuster filmmaking. And the desire to make it relevant, and appeal to kids nowadays results in some moments that make me question what audience the filmmakers had in mind.
Scoob! is an origin story of sorts. It begins with a sequence where we see how a young Shaggy (Will Forte) and Scooby (Frank Welker) first meet, and how they became friends with Fred (Zac Efron), Daphne (Amanda Seyfried), and Velma (Gina Rodriguez), soon forming the iconic Mystery Inc. Cutting to them later as adults, the group of friends find themselves sucked into an adventure where Shaggy and Scooby are recruited by the Blue Falcon (Mark Wahlberg) and his team to help stop the evil Dick Dastardly (Jason Isaacs), who is trying to open a portal to the underworld, and unleash the three-headed hound Cerberus upon the world for his own selfish desires.
The first sign of the film’s place in the current Hollywood landscape is the inclusion of other Hanna-Barbera characters. It pulls figures from various old programs like Dynomutt, Dog Wonder, Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines, and Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels, and mostly rearranging some of them to fit the narrative more efficiently. I am not entirely sure if children today are all that aware of some of these lesser known Hanna-Barbera characters, but the film does a decent enough job at re-introducing them, even if this attempt at creating a whole new cinematic universe ends up getting in the way of the characters we all came here for.
I have been a fan of Scooby-Doo since I was a child, having watch the various shows, and watching all the straight-to-video movies, which I still occasionally catch up on to this day. Scoob! to me feels like it’s a film designed specifically to the kind of person who would say “all Scooby-Doo stories are the same, it’s always some guy in a mask” It’s an understandable gripe, but one that doesn’t grasp the whole point of the franchise being about how it explored problem solving and embraced a skeptical perspective. Scoob! largely abandons that in favor of standard superhero tropes and plot beats, complete with a “special bloodline” narrative and a climactic sky-beam.
It’s not that the film had to adhere to the established philosophy of the series. After all, the two best things to come out of this franchise, the first straight-to-video film Scooby-Doo On Zombie Island, and the short-lived, but wonderful Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated TV series, both broke the “there are no real monsters” rule. This film also breaks that, but it’s in the lack of creating its own identity where it really falls short. It’s stop trying to be like all the other Scooby-Doo properties, and instead becomes like all the other modern blockbusters.
I also can’t help but feel bad for the voice talent who have been doing these characters for many years not returning to the roles, a couple of them even expressing disappointment because of it. Welker is the only one returning voice actor playing Scooby, but he has been the voice of Fred isnce the very beginning. Grey DeLisle has been the voice of Daphne since 2001, Kate Micucci has taken over Velma since 2015, and of course, Matthew Lillard famously made the rare jump from live-action to animation with his portrayal of Shaggy, which he has been voicing since 2010. Had these new celebrity voice actors brought something, I wouldn’t feel the need to even point this out, but with the exception of Will Forte, everyone is more or less playing themselves. Even Blue Falcon, who admittedly gets a lot of the film’s funniest moments, is Wahlberg doing his usual shtick. At least, Isaacs is having fun.
I suppose Scoob! is a perfectly harmless and serviceable distraction, especially if you have kids. It’s amusing, colorful, fast-paced, and very, very busy with stuff happening and characters running all over the place, getting into hijinks, making pop culture references while some pop song comes along in the soundtrack. However, as someone who has always had an affinity for this series, and its characters, I didn’t find a whole lot to like about this film. It barely registers as a Scooby-Doo story since Shaggy and Scooby are split from the rest of the gang early on, and the world ending stakes just don’t fit this series. Its themes on friendship don’t resonate because we don’t get to spend much time with these characters as friends before the film splits them up, and rush them through a convoluted plot with unearned dramatic beats. There have been plenty of bad Scooby-Doo things released before, so it’s not like I’m mad, but I did come into this hoping to be pleasantly surprised, and instead, I am disappointed. I think there is a way to bring this series back, and on the big screen, in a way that is both fresh and has a solid understanding of its world, characters, and ideas, but this ain’t it, chief.