"Scooby-Doo (2001)" - Film Review
Audience expectations are always high when a beloved children’s franchise is adapted to film. These expectations are usually from parents and older siblings who grew up with the original and have strong opinions on a refresh of their beloved childhood memories, not from the children who will actually be watching the adaptation. Scooby-Doo (2002) marked the first live-action iteration of these characters, and is perhaps one of the best arguments for the Academy Awards to make a category for casting.
The Mystery Inc. gang is made up of Fred (Freddie Prinze Jr.), Daphne (Sarah Michelle Gellar), Velma (Linda Cardellini), Shaggy (Matthew Lillard), and Scooby (Neil Fanning), and they’re on shaky ground as the film begins. No longer the tight-knit group the audience is used to seeing, thanks (mostly) to Fred’s ego, they decide to call it quits as a mystery-solving team. Shaggy and Scooby hang out by the beach, Daphne gets into martial arts, Velma works for NASA, and Fred writes a book all about himself. They are happily living separate lives until a mysterious man named Emile Mondavarious (Rowan Atkinson) asks each of them to come to his theme park, Spooky Island, where strange things have been happening. The gang begrudgingly agrees to help solve the mystery, but they refuse to work together as a team.
Warner Bros. Pictures
The pitch-perfect casting of each of the members of Mystery Inc. is what ultimately makes Scooby-Doo compulsively rewatchable. The plot is serviceable, and most adults will be able to unmask the villain long before the Mystery Inc. team does, but that doesn’t take away from the enjoyment. The problem with the film is a tonal issue. It’s unclear whether the intended audience is kids new to these characters or the adults who grew up loving them. The juvenile fart jokes are clearly geared toward the children, but there are glimpses of the more adult movie it was originally intended to be. It does feel slightly disingenuous for Shaggy to be the poster child for stoners, and there are plenty of signs clearly pointing to the fact that he’s high, if anyone wants to connect the dots.
At its core, Scooby-Doo is trapped between two worlds, to the detriment of the movie and its potential audiences. It could be the baked-in nostalgia, the casting, or the breezy runtime that does the trick, but the film is a delight. It doesn’t quite reach the subversive, tongue-in-cheek heights of The Brady Bunch Movie, but it’s a welcome revival that brings a liveliness to the beloved comics.
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