Scoob! (2020)
Over the past 50-years, the Scooby-Doo franchise has stayed relevant and generally well received through multiple animated series, feature films, and live action remakes. It is this continued popularity that made Scooby-Doo a reasonable choice as the property to kick off Hollywood's newest cinematic shared universe this time bringing together classic Hanna-Barbera characters. Ditching the traditional Scooby-Doo formula, Tony Cervone's Scoob! follows a broken Mystery Inc. after Simon Cowell (this is not a joke) tells Shaggy (Will Forte) and Scooby (Frank Welker) that they don't add anything to the mystery solving team. This leaves the duo looking for a way to prove their worth which comes when they team up with The Blue Falcon (Mark Wahlberg) and Dynomutt the Dog Wonder (Ken Jeong) against the evil Dick Dastardly (Jason Isaacs).
Right away it should be clear that the formula and story that Scoob! follows is one of the films worst elements. Even for the lesser Scooby-Doo, there is at least the natural draw and investment of a mystery with some reveal the end even if they mostly are predictable. Scoob! abandons this to give a boring and forgettable good Vs. evil story that does absolutely nothing to stand out or draw audiences in. It is such a shame to see a film with so many possibilities contrive a story that takes no chances and has no inspiration behind it. It also fails to create excitement for future films in the cinematic universe. Not only are the actual characters that are supposed to carry future films uninteresting but the film itself is distracted with focusing instead on dated out of place references and jokes that all fail to land. Instead of crafting smart humor that actually would get a reaction, 99% of the jokes in Scoob! feel like cheap attempts from the film throwing stuff at a board hoping something sticks. It comes off as cringey and annoying rather than entertaining in the slightest.
Even on a technical level Scoob! struggles to impress in really any element. The animation is completely passable yet forgettable lacking any sense of style or personality. So many animated films have decided that the best direction to take CGI animation is to create hyper realistic worlds and characters that might have impressive hair dynamics but fails to create a memorable world that sucks audiences in. Especially when compared to the inventive work of animated directors like Masaaki Yuasa or Ann Marie Fleming, films with styles such as the one in Scoob! feel like wastes of the animated space and fail to resonate in nearly any way. This blandness can be said for the voice acting. It isn't that any of the voice cast including the likes of Gina Rodriguez, Zac Efron, and Amanda Seyfried are bad, but rather are in no way memorable or impactful. There isn't a single voice performance in Scoob! that crafts a real identity for any of the characters much less depth or emotion. It is passable yet clearly uninspired much like the rest of the film.
Scoob! had potential to be a wildly fun and standout adventure for Scooby and the gang but ends up falling way short. It is an unfunny, uninspired, watered down waste of time which at its peak feels mediocre. To sell audiences on decently unknown Hanna-Barbera properties, there needed to be a memorable and bold start to the universe that made fans wanting more in the same light as a film like Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Instead Scoob! was an honestly painful watch that makes the idea of entering this universe again dreadful. The only saving grace to Scoob! would be that instead of sitting in the theater trapped with children, I was able to watch Scoob! from the watch from the comfort where I could easily distract myself until the end of its runtime.
Scoob! had potential to be a wildly fun and standout adventure for Scooby and the gang but ends up falling way short. It is an unfunny, uninspired, watered down waste of time which at its peak feels mediocre. To sell audiences on decently unknown Hanna-Barbera properties, there needed to be a memorable and bold start to the universe that made fans wanting more in the same light as a film like Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Instead Scoob! was an honestly painful watch that makes the idea of entering this universe again dreadful. The only saving grace to Scoob! would be that instead of sitting in the theater trapped with children, I was able to watch Scoob! from the watch from the comfort where I could easily distract myself until the end of its runtime.