SCOOBY-DOO

SCOOBY-DOO is the longest running cartoon series on television. One media pundit claims that the reason the program did so well for so long is that it combined “a lot of elements kids loved: humor, adventure and mystery, and it manages to be exciting without a high level of violence.” Furthermore, although many if not most of the plots involve references to spooky ghosts, goblins and other characters, by the end of the program, these villains were always found out to be people with masks trying to scare others.

The moviemakers did not want to just translate the television show to the big screen, so they decided to go against type in several areas. Daphne goes from being a damsel in distress to being a black belt in karate. Real monsters and protoplasmic creatures appear in the movie. The violence and sexual innuendo is heightened. None of these changes does very much for the weak storyline, however.

In the beginning, SCOOBY-DOO and his crime solving cohorts, Fred, Daphne, Shaggy, and Velma, are wrapping up another mystery. When Fred takes all the credit once again at a press interview, Velma, the real brains in the group, quits, as does Daphne. Fred quits too, leaving Scooby and Shaggy to go it together. Shaggy and Scooby are best of friends, and Shaggy makes a good point, “Friends don’t quit.”

Two years later, Shaggy and Scooby are on the beach in their van when they get a personal invitation to come to Spooky Island, “the” place to go for college students on spring break. When they get to the airport, lo and behold, there’s the rest of the team. However, Velma, Daphne and Fred still won’t talk to each other. Daphne has changed: she’s got a black belt in karate. Fred is hawking his book, FRED ON FRED. Shaggy and Scooby just want a good meal on Spooky Island.

The college students flying over to Spooky Island are into the good life of spring break in a big way, some of which comes close to being over the edge. Body piercings and tattoos abound. Shaggy meets Mary Jane, who’s wearing the barest of halters over her Barbie Doll body. He notes that Mary Jane is his favorite name.

When they get to the island, they meet Emil Mondavarious, the owner of Spooky Island played by Rowan Atkinson. Emil is concerned because normal kids come to Spooky Island and trance-like, cult kids leave Spooky Island. Quickly, the team recognizes that there’s a cult involved. At the voodoo ceremonies that evening, the tattooed master of ceremonies says that an ancient race inhabited the island and now they’re displeased by the amusement park. Scooby is called into the forest, where he meets a very ghoulish-looking monster.

The team has a moment to reminiscent about the little dog Scrappy Doo. In a flashback, Scrappy urinates on Daphne, so they kick him out of the car.

The college students are partying and getting drunk on the island. The team goes and finds an abandoned ride and gets trapped in a killing machine with the typical spook house effects – things lunging at them from the dark, paintings that watch them and walls that crush them. Just before they’re crushed, Fred bursts through a window and finds that they’re being watched and manipulated. They find a mystic pyramid. Meanwhile, Scrappy and Scooby have a flatulence contest. While they’re doing that, Fred, Daphne and Velma lose their souls and are inhabited by ancient demonic creatures. Scrappy and Scooby find a well of misplaced souls or protoplasm. Scrappy pulls out each one of their friends.

Regrettably, they mix up their bodies as the soul of each member of the team searches for their own body. For instance, there’s some sexual humor when Fred’s soul inhabits Daphne’s body. When their souls finally go back into their own bodies, the monsters come out and dissolve in the daylight. Therefore, the monsters need the human bodies to survive and take over the world.

Eventually, the team realizes there’s going to be a big voodoo ingestion of souls that evening. They stop it in time, and discover that Scrappy-Doo is one of the villains.

In trying to go beyond the television series, SCOOBY-DOO the movie violates some of the principles that made the original television series so popular. The violence at times is too intense. The college weekend is too salacious. Some of the scary moments are over the top for a children’s movie. Furthermore, the phantasmic protoplasm monsters are real, breaking one of the cardinal rules of the SCOOBY-DOO series (though real ghosts and monsters appear in the direct to videos programs that were released after the TV program).

All these things remove SCOOBY-DOO from being acceptable for little children. Dr. Cantor’s research shows that young children confuse fantasy and reality. Children in the imagination stage are afraid of transformations, like Bruce Banner becoming the Incredible Hulk. SCOOBY-DOO is going to scare a lot of children. In fact, one critic told me that his five-year-old was scared by the movie.

On the other hand, SCOOBY-DOO doesn’t push the envelope enough to be campy and provocative for teenagers. Thus, once again a film has been made which tries to straddle the fence and therefore doesn’t fit into any category for any audience. A little more attention to story and less attention to concept would have made this a better movie.

On the positive side, the actors do a good job with what they’ve got. Matthew Lillard is terrific, as is Freddie Prinze, but the best acting is SCOOBY-DOO, who is really just a computer image with a voice. Furthermore, SCOOBY-DOO has some clear moral points, some acts of people sacrificing themselves for others and can be seen as a dissertation on demonic possession. In all, SCOOBY-DOO is not a bad movie, but it could have been much better.