Cert: PG
Dir: Raja Gosnell
Starring: Matthew Lillard, Freddie Prinze Jr., Linda Cardellini,
Sarah Michelle Gellar, Rowan Atkinson, voices of Neil Fanning and
Scott Innes
SPOILERS
BELOW!
Well, they did it. They really, honestly did it -
they made a live-action Scooby-Doo movie. And is it really as
god-awful as everyone thought it would be?
The answer is: no, sir, it most definitely is not.
It's classic Scooby, but with a twist. After their differences
get too much to handle, Mystery Inc splits up, and Shaggy
(Lillard), Scooby (Fanning), Fred (Prinze), Velma (Cardellini)
and Daphne (Gellar) all go their separate ways. But time passes,
and they find themselves all invited to Spooky Island, a theme
park run by the mysterious Emile Mondavarious (Atkinson), who
wants them to solve a mystery for him. And what they find is like
nothing they've encountered before - from real, live demons to
voodoo magic and a mastermind from the past!
First, let's
take a look at the cast who take on the somewhat daunting task of
bringing the classic characters to life for the first time.
Matthew Lillard as Shaggy is... perfect. He was simply born to
play this role, and nails it absolutely perfectly, especially the
voice! Close your eyes, and you'd swear it's Casey Kasem. He
LOOKS like Shaggy, moves like him... he IS Shaggy.
Freddie Prinze Jr. as Fred, on the other hand, is not quite the
Fred we know from the old cartoon series - in fact, he comes off
as more of a caricature of him, moreso than is the case with any
of the other characters. He's infinitely more amusing (to me, at
least), than Daphne, the other character who'd had her
personality dicked with for the purposes of the movie... but
we'll get to that in a few seconds.
Velma is
perhaps the character that most resembles her cartoon
incarnation. Nothing is sacrificed to bring Velma to the big
screen, and I'm also very glad that they didn't go with star
power in casting Linda Cardellini (of TV's little-known
"Freaks and Geeks") in the role unlike they did with
Daphne.
And now... Daphne. Oh, BOY, do I have issues with Sarah Michelle
Gellar as Daphne. Gellar is cast to simply endow the film with
some real star power - plus a heaping helping of gratuitous T
& A. Because it's Gellar, Daphne's character is given a
flimsy excuse to transform into a butt-kicking power-babe, and
before that transformation she's turned into even more of a prima
donna than she was in the cartoon, as Gellar wades through their
script with her typical "trying to sound like a real
actor" style of acting.. And as for resemblance to the
cartoon? Well, she only wears her "cartoon" outfit in
the opening "prologue" of the film, and even then, it's
been altered to bear more cleavage and leg. She then spends the
rest of the film swanning around in a series of small, tight
outfits, that only resemble her "true" costume in that
they're purple... but they're not even the right damn SHADE of
purple.
Gah.
And finally, the CGI Scooby. It would have make or broke the
film, depending on it's quality - and thankfully, it's great.
It's somewhere in between the Scooby from the cartoon, and a real
dog, and does everything that they're both capable of. There are
definitely some instances were it looks more real than others,
but, hey, it happens. I was also quite glad to discover that
Scott Innes did NOT provide Scooby's voice, as had been
originally thought. As some may know, Innes is the voice actor
who has been playing the role of Scooby in the various
direct-to-video features that have been released lately,
replacing the late Don Messick, the original actor behind Scooby.
And in my humble opinion, Innes really, REALLY sucks at doing the
voice. I hear nothing but a schoolyard impression from him. Neil
Fanning, however, the actor who actually does portray Scooby in
this movie, does a much better job - it's still not quite
Messick, but I don't think anyone's capable of doing a perfect
impression.
The story of
the movie itself is largely classic Scooby, setting up a bunch of
likely suspects and a few curious clues, allowing the audience's
minds to get to work on the mystery. It's slightly reminiscent of
the animated feature, "Zombie Island," in that the
monsters here aren't guys in masks - they're real, and they have
a particularly creepy design that's fairly far removed from
typical Scooby monsters, while their CGI has a curious, yet very
fitting, feel of stop-motion to it in places.
Apparently, in the original version of the film, there were to be
a lot more spoofs of typical Scooby material (a la "The
Brady Bunch Movie"), but in the end, they seemed to chicken
out and edit a lot of it out. Honestly, though, the movie is
probably better off in this start, as it toes the line between
true adaptation and piss-take perfectly - any more, and it would
have been overkill. What's left are a few references to Shaggy's
munches, and stabs at the old clichés - "Now that we're
back together, let's split up and look for clues!" There's
next to nothing left about Velma's sexual orientation left - just
a few things which are harmless on their own, but which take on
greater meaning when you know what was originally being hinted at
("voyage of self-discovery," friendly punch on arm for
the guy who was evidently interested in her).
A highlight is definitely
the short flashback, which tells the fate of He Who Is The Worst
Cartoon Character Ever - ever wonder where Scrappy-Doo went?
Well, now you can find out. ;) Just about anyone who's ever seen
the cartoon is sure to enjoy this little nugget - and as a side
note, Scott Innes provides Scrappy's voice, and does a lot better
than he ever did as Scooby. Nowhere else will you hear that
little guy use the word "scrote."
OVERALL
Despite my extreme disappointment that the movie
didn't end with the staple cry of "Scooby-Dooby-DOOOO!"
(I can't believe that they didn't do that! It's how EVERY episode
ended!), and my already-stated issues about Daphne, this flick
still freaking owns you. I'll freely admit that I was among the
many people who thought that this movie would be terrible - in
fact, I think just about everybody thought it would be. But it's
not. It's just great. Everything from "Jinkies!" to
"Zoinks! to "Rikes!" is here, but many adult
reviewers can't handle the modernising of the concept. The magic
of Scooby-Doo is timeless, and here, it's brought to the
big-screen in a way that no-one could have imagined would be so
popular. One of this summer's best movies, and certainly not one
to be missed.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
Random Trivia Factoids: Frank Welker, the voice actor who has
played the part of Fred in every single animated appearance the
character has made from the very start of the series, can be
heard in the movie, providing vocal effects for some of the
monsters. Fred is the only Scooby-Doo character to have been
voiced by the same actor since the beginning of the series, and
will still be voiced by Welker in the upcoming new animated
series.
Thoughts on some other summer movies! Remember - THERE ARE SPOILERS!
- - -
Starring: Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones, That Dude From "Jackass," Lara Flynn Boyle's breasts, and some guys who are better in the cartoon series.
I was left very underwhelmed by "Men in
Black II." While certainly funnier than the first film, it's
entire plot is simply a rehash of the first film's - find
precious object before villain does or Earth will be destroyed.
Similarly, the end of the film is simply trying to copy the first
film's "surprise" ending - with the first film, it
showed our galaxy within a 
marble, like the galaxy the
characters had been searching for in the film. But in this
sequel, our world is shown to be contained within a single locker
- imitating a locker-full of small aliens seen once or twice in
the film. But here, it was just simply too much of a minor plot
point for it to work, and it's just a stupid copy of the first
flick anyway.
Also, in the interm between movies, we've had the really good animated MiB series. Perhaps I'm just bugged because this movie firmly thrusts it out of continuity with the first feature, seeing as how the cartoon, on the whole, is just plain BETTER than both films put together. The characters of Frank the Pug and Zed, for example, are definitely better in animtaed form - Frank's much-more gravelly voice works better for him there, while Zed could easily have been played in live action by Charles Napier, the actor who provides his voice in the cartoon - Napier has a history of playing hardass military types in live action, and would have been a great Zed.
Eh. An average movie. Good to pass a few hours with, then to just forget about.
- - -
Starring: Steve Irwin and some other people no-one cares about.
When a
crocodile swallows the information core of a crash-landed
intelligence satellite, it's up to Steve Irwin to save the
unfortunate creature from the unwelcome attentions of two groups
of rival spies, plus a rather unpleasant farmer.
I nearly fell out of my seat when I first saw the advert for the Crocodile Hunter movie. What a great idea! And it didn't just work in theory, either, it proved to be an entertaining, and even informative movie in the execution, as well. Irwin IS the movie, and his natural enthusiasm is enough to keep the audience interested for the movie's duration. There's no mucking about with CGI here, people - these angry crocodiles, venomous spiders and huge snakes are all REAL, and Irwin's probably the only guy on the face of the planet you could get to make a movie with them. All of the scenes featuring Irwin and his wife, Terri, are actually filmed as though they were an episode of his TV series, while the flashier-looking scenes with the spies in pursuit of them look more like a standard film.
Overall, a fun romp that'll give you a few giggles and entertain you for an hour or two, which you might even take a little something away from with you. Have a go at this whopper! Crikey!