Scooby-Doo

Year 13, Day 284 - 10/11/21 - Movie #3,952

BEFORE: OK, I know I set up this chain months ago, but now I find that I have to bend my own rules a bit in order to continue. Frank Welker carries over from "Scoob!" and Frank Welker's been a part of the Scooby-Dooniverse since the very beginning, he's the long-time voice of Fred "I'm Too Sexy for my Ascot" Jones, like, since the original series run began in 1969. Over 50 years later, he's still associated with the franchise, only he performed the voice of Scooby-Doo the DOG in "Scoob!" last year. So naturally it was easy for me to assume that he did the voice of Scooby in the 2002 live-action version. Umm, nope. He's credited, along with Jess Harnell, as doing the voice of "Creatures". Now, normally this would be against my rules - for the sake of expediency, I don't count voice actors as part of a cast unless they're credited with specific, ideally named, characters - otherwise I'd be here all night listing "additional voices" actors and people who do ADRs, aka the "loop group". Hey, you've got to have a cut-off somewhere, right?

But, if I make the cut-off in my usual place, then the chain is broken. So we can't have that, can we? I'm knocking off a bunch of long-avoided horror franchises this year, and my first preference is to keep all the films from the same franchise together, and in the "right" order, instead of jumping around between the franchises all willy-nilly. My goal is to watch films and present them to you in what I deem to the be right way, and I'm not making a connection where there is none, Frank Welker's voice is DEFINITELY in this film, so I'm going to say that the chain remains a chain, and is unbroken.

There is a precendent here, also with animated films - last year it suited my purposes, and my OCD to watch "Tarzan 2: The Legend Begins", Disney's prequel with Tarzan as a baby, before watching "Tarzan & Jane", which is set after Disney's first "Tarzan" film.  Young Tarzan, then old Tarzan, makes sense, right?  But the only voice actor who carried over between the two was... well, look at that, it was Frank Welker. Wikipedia says he provided the voices of two gorillas in "Tarzan & Jane", Nuru and Sheeta, but the IMDB didn't list him at all for that film.  For "Tarzan 2", Welker was only listed as providing "animal vocal effects", namely tiger growls, but because I really wanted to watch those two films back-to-back, with nothing in-between, that had to suit my purposes.  If you've got a problem with that, go on and prove that Frank Welker WASN'T the voice of two gorillas in "Tarzan & Jane". Ah, not so easy, is it?  

THE PLOT: After an acrimonious break-up, the Mystery Inc. gang are individually brought to an island resort to investigate strange goings-on.

AFTER: Last year's film "Scoob!" got really into some lessons about friendship, and the bond between Shaggy and Scooby got tested after Scooby started hanging out with Blue Falcon and Dynomutt. Here the WHOLE GANG goes on a break after taking down the Luna Ghost, who was haunting the factory that makes Pamela Anderson action figures. Though their plan went a bit awry, and there were a few accidents, nobody got hurt and they were able to prove it was the creepy janitor all along, the one who was leering after the Baywatch babe and then tried to ruin her financially after she wouldn't go out with him.  

We're kind of coming in here midway into the story of Mystery Inc. - these crazy kids have been together for a few years, and they've solved many cases together, sure, but they're getting on each other's nerves. Fred always takes the credit for solving the case, forgets to mention the other members of the team to reporters, and when the team splits up to check out the spooky houses, he always pairs up with Daphne (gee, I wonder why). Velma's upset, because she's smart and confident and there's no reason why she can't also make out in those spooky dark halls with Daphne. No, FRED, geez, did I say Daphne, that's ridiculous, why would Velma want to make out with Daphne? Clearly, she's got the hots for Fred. But maybe also Daphne...?

Daphne's upset because she always plays the hostage role, getting kidnapped by the bad guy pretending to be a ghost or pirate, and that means she always gets tied up, or hypnotized and then God knows what happens to her when she's separated from the rest of the group, right?  I think she also protests too much, maybe she kind of digs getting tied up and tossed around?  Just a thought. And Shaggy and Scooby are also tired of chasing ghosts around through spooky houses, remember how they're always acting scared? Why do these two hang out with paranormal investigators if they're so easily scared, and they'd rather just be eating themselves sick somewhere? You know what, maybe it is time for this group to take a break, so they can all figure out just what they want out of life.

(If what you want out of life is to really see these characters gettin' it on, there IS a porn parody of "Scooby-Doo" that's readily available on the internet. You really have to search hard for it, because it's called "Scooby-Doo: A XXX Parody" - which is probably exactly what you'd type into a search engine if you happened to be wondering if such a thing exists.  It does. And they do it, all of them, in a spooky house. Fred & Daphne. Shaggy & Velma. Daphne & Velma. And all four of them together.  And there's NO dog in the movie, because that would be gross. Yes, there's no Scooby-Doo character in "Scooby-Doo: A XXX Parody" and somehow that's both very strange and also a giant relief at the same time. Just be aware that after you watch that, you will be unable to un-watch that. Hey, there's a porn parody out there of every show, from "A-Team" to "X-Files". Yep, even "Seinfeld". Yep, even "The Brady Bunch". Yep, "Taxi", "I Love Lucy" and "Golden Girls".)

But let's put all that aside for a bit. Our heroes try to fill their time off with various pursuits, Shaggy and Scooby take the van to the beach and just live out of it, grilling up food and making weird sandwich combinations. I can get behind that - at least the van won't smell like weed and sex for a while. (Or will it?). There are plenty of "in-jokes" here about Shaggy being a stoner, like he falls for a girl named "Mary Jane" and he says that's, like, his "favorite name". Sure it is. 

There's a crazy billionaire who runs a tropical, horror-themed resort (is that a thing?) for twenty-somethings, he seeks out all five members of Mystery Inc. and lures them back into the paranormal investigation racket by offering them all money, free airfare, and for Shaggy and Scooby, access to the "all-you-can-eat" buffet. I can get behind that - like, dude, you had me at "buffet" too. Scooby is smuggled aboard a plane disguised as somebody's ugly, dog-faced grandmother, and then once they hit the resort, the team members split up in a competition over who can solve the mystery of why many young people come to the island all happy and energetic and leave all sullen and emotionless. I don't know, maybe their vacation just sucked and was a waste of money, and now they're depressed and poor?

Daphne checks out a voodoo priest who doesn't know he needs to use a LIVE chicken, Velma checks out a ritual with a pretend cult leader and some Mexican wrestlers, and Fred goes to the Sugar Ray concert. Yeah, that's helpful. Meanwhile, Shaggy goes for a ride with Mary Jane (if you know what I mean) and Scooby learns she may not be what she pretends to be. But before long each member's quest takes them to the big spooky mansion up on the hill, so before you know it, the gang's back together investigating all the secret passages, moving walls and floors, and animatronic beasties trying to kill them. Since this all takes place in a giant spooky theme park, it's hard to know where the amusement park ride stops and the real spooky stuff starts.

HOWEVER, underneath the fake cult and the plastic monsters, there seems to be a REAL cult and ACTUAL monsters, of a sort, anyway. You know, for a group of kids who made their bones de-bunking hauntings and paranormal stuff, they sure seem to encounter a lot of real spooky stuff that just can't be explained by holographic projections and luminous paint, things floating on wires and hallucinogens in the air or foreign substances in the drinks. There are genuine "creatures" here that are tormenting the park, only nobody really notices because of all the clearly fake ones, until their best friend gets eaten by a creature. This is a bit like "Jurassic Park", maybe, because perhaps those first few people who visited J.P. naturally assumed it was all special effects and fake dinosaurs, but that assumption only lasts until a raptor bites your arm off.  

If you've heard anything at all about this movie over the years, then you probably already know the ending, and who the villain behind the scenes is. It's a horrible cop-out, but they made it worse by telegraphing the reveal with an unwarranted flashback scene halfway through the movie. Why else would that even BE there, it doesn't prove any point otherwise. Very shoddy foreshadowing, for sure. And who wrote this screenplay?  Why, James Gunn, the guy who brought you "Guardians of the Galaxy" and also revived "The Suicide Squad". He was slumming on this one, but hey, it was early in his career, I guess when you're just starting out as a screenwriter you have to take what you can get.  

There's a whole demonic possession-meets-body-swapping bit here, as the souls of the Mystery Inc. characters try to get back into their bodies, though, they get a bit scrambled, and Fred's soul ends up in Daphne's body, Velma ends up in Shaggy's body, Shaggy's over THERE, it's a whole thing. I don't usually go for the whole "Freaky Friday" thing, I've avoided those films almost completely, except for the riffs on "Big" like "13 Going on 30". But now HBO is running "Freaky", which puts a whole horror spin on the body-swapping concept, I might give that one a go in the future. Here, in "Scooby-Doo", they don't really keep it classy - like when Fred's soul is inside a woman's body, he doesn't say, "Hey, this is great, maybe I can get some insight on women from their perspective..."  Nope, it's straight to, "Hey I can touch boobies!" and "I can see Daphne naked!"  Wow, man, that's so 2002 and it's no longer cool. Velma, meanwhile, DID want to get into Daphne's clothes, but not like this.  It's OK to say this because she's clearly LGBTQ.

I managed to successfully avoid this film for almost 20 years - it came out in 2002 and I thought it looked stupid.  Which it is, it's very stupid, it's really just a live-action cartoon, which isn't as much of a contradiction as it sounds. But now, this year, watching it gives me linking opportunities - Sarah Michelle Gellar's in at least one other notable horror franchise, and Matthew Lillard was also in the first "Scream" film. And I'm going to get to the "Scream" films this month, but a little later, like, next week, man. It turns out there wasn't one clear path through all the horror films I wanted to get to this time around, so I had to get a bit creative with the linking, but in the end, I think I'm satisfied with the result, and I hope you will be too.

Also starring Freddie Prinze Jr. (last heard in "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker"), Sarah Michelle Gellar (last heard in "Happily N'Ever After"), Matthew Lillard (last seen in "The Perfect Score"), Linda Cardellini (last seen in "Hunter Killer"), Rowan Atkinson (last seen in "Johnny English Strikes Again"), Isla Fisher (last seen in "Life of Crime"), Miguel A. Nuñez Jr., Sam Greco, Charlie Cousins, Steven Grives, Holly Brisley, Kristian Schmid, Nicholas Hope, Michala Banas, with the voices of Neil Fanning, Scott Innes, J.P. Manoux (last seen in "The Island"), Jess Harnell (last heard in "The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature") and cameos from Pamela Anderson (last seen in "Baywatch"), Mark McGrath (last seen in "Fathers' Day") and the band Sugar Ray. 

RATING: 4 out of 10 burps and farts (keepin' it classy!)