Scoob!
Zoinks! Scooby-Doo and friends are back in Scoob!, a new animated adventure that utilizes the original series' story structure to breathe fresh life into the entire Hanna-Barbera brand. It's got a little bit of everything today's moviegoing audience wants, including superheroes and cinematic universe building. Still, it never loses sight of its real purpose: Keeping easily-distracted children busy for 90 brightly-colored minutes.
It all starts with a lonely boy people call Shaggy (voiced by Big Little Lies’ Iain Armitage as a kid and Will Forte as an “adult”). One day, while roaming the beach listening to an Ira Glass podcast about making friends, Shaggy finds a kindred spirit in a stray dog he helps save from the police with quick wits. He takes his new friend home and, later that same night, makes three more friends when he unintentionally stops a thief that disguises themselves as an evil spirit. It's the kind of life-changing moment that bonds the new group for life, and it's all the origin story Scoob needs to get us to its feature presentation.
The grown-up Mystery Machine team of Shaggy, Scooby (Frank Welker), Velma (Gina Rodriguez), Fred (Zac Efron), and Daphne (Amanda Seyfried) are fully-realized with stunning CGI animation. There are slight tweaks to the classic character designs, mostly with their hair, but there is no mistaking their identities or personality traits. Solving crimes is now their full-time job — or at least they want it to be — and soon a friendship-splintering offer from none other than Simon Cowell sets in motion what soon becomes the greatest mystery of their lives. There are robots, magic skulls, a secret fortune tied to Alexander the Great, and an evil villain pulled from another iconic Hanna-Barbera property.
Scoob! is more or less a classic Scooby-Doo mystery. The gang gets separated, chaos ensues, and they reunite right on time to save the day. That alone is enough to warrant a watch, as the script from a team of four writers — including Matt Lieberman (The Addams Family) and Adam Sztykiel (Rampage) — nails the tried and true formula.
That said, the entertainment value will vary wildly between viewers. The surprises are few and far between. What keeps the momentum going more often than not is the likability of the characters, which is what you would expect from a Scooby-Doo feature.
While the voice cast of Scoob! is impressive, it's hard to argue that any of the big names featured are necessary to produce the final product. Fred is nothing like Efron, nor is Shaggy any better for having Forte deliver his voice. The one exception is Blue Falcon, a wannabe hero voiced by Mark Wahlberg — performing his best impression of Mark Wahlberg in The Other Guys — but the character isn't enough like his celebrity voice to warrant what was surely a big payday for the actor.
At its best, Scoob! is a harmless distraction from the chaos that surrounds us at all times in 2020. It also sets up a potential Hanna-Barbera cinematic universe that could eventually bring The Flintstones, The Jetsons, and perhaps even Hong Kong Fuey features, all of which I'm sure the studio would love to greenlight as soon as humanly possible. But if those films never see the light of day, Scoob does more than enough right to stand on its own. It's good, but not great. It’s goofy and charming, but not laugh-out-loud funny. The moments that work are a riot. The ones that don't last all that long. It's fine. Perfectly fine.
Grade: B-minus. Rated PG. Available to rent via iTunes, Amazon Video, and other streaming services.
(Photo: Warner Bros.)
