Scooby-Doo | Film Review | Slant Magazine

FILM MOVIE REVIEW

Scooby-Doo *½

by Ed Gonzalez on June 11, 2002 Jump to Comments (1) or Add Your Own

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It's difficult to pay homage to bad television let alone bad television oblivious to its own subversions. "Scooby Doo" (not unlike, say, "The Brady Bunch") was priceless because of this very cluelessness; it made it that much more fun to pick apart the subtext. With Scooby Doo the movie being marketed as the next kiddie blockbuster (studio heads okayed the high fart quotient but nixed the lesbian kiss between Sarah Michelle Geller's Daphne and Linda Cardellini's Velma), what's left for the Gen X fanbase that grew up on Scooby snacks? There's a good 100 things wrong with Scooby Doo, all of which can be referenced in relation to the relative success of The Brady Bunch Movie. The Bradys weren't ready for the '90s because they played the decade like they did the '70s. On the other hand, Scooby Doo's Mystery Inc. gang dress like its 1972 with not so much as one citation from the fashion police. James Gunn's screenplay is straight from the PoMo junk pile (while Gunn refuses to negotiate the text's millenium shift the TV show's original theme song has nonetheless been remixed for the Alf generation). Modern-day guest spots are to be expected but Pamela Anderson is no Phyllis Diller. Perhaps it's as simple as a casting couch faux pas. With the possible exception of Matthew Lillard, the cast (not unlike the film) plays it entirely too high or too low. Cardellini has more sex appeal than Gellar, whose take on the ditzy Daphne is so self-conscious that you might just forget the awkward bit of empowerment she finds on what seems like a deleted scene from Charlie's Angels. Not only are the best parts of the old TV show gone (remember the pot-stoked, synchronized group running?), Chris Columbus protégé Raja Gosnell directs the film as if it were Britney Spears's worst CGI nightmare.

Director(s): Raja Gosnell
Screenplay: James Gunn
Cast: Freddie Prinze Jr., Sarah Michelle Gellar, Matthew Lillard, Linda Cardellini, Scott Innes, Rowan Atkinson, Mark McGrath, Pamela Anderson
Distributor: Warner Bros.
Runtime: 86 min.
Rating: PG
Year: 2002

Comments

No-Personality on November 28, 2010, 09:44 AM

Agreed on Cardellini. Disagreed on The Brady Bunch Movie. For proof that it wasn't the disaster everyone else made it out to be, re-watch The Beverly Hillbillies movie. Jennifer Elise Cox was freaking hysterical, every line out of her mouth became a classic just because she said it. One day I may even form a band named in her honor: Let's Knock Over a 7-Eleven!

Also agreed on the original Scooby Doo. Those snooping kids as a group were nothing more than stuck up, self-centered elitists who liked to travel. Obnoxious, short tempered, snooty, stuffy, pushy, and self-righteous. They basically walk onto other people's property whether they're invited or not and have the nerve to always insist that something is wrong with everyone else. And when they're invited to a dinner or party, being so full of themselves as to take maybe a single bite of everything just to sample it and put it back partially eaten, they push themselves into other people's conversations. This movie should have been a spoof of some sort. Something along the lines of a Murder by Death or Clue, where the suspect guest list were allowed to be aware of how rude these people were. And revealed the fraud of their crime-solving / ghost-busting service. Nothing more than an excuse to hustle free food.