I turned off the fist Scooby-Doo movie ten minutes into it so it goes without saying that I did not expect much from the sequel, but one thing got me thinking that this one just might work, and that was the addition of monsters we have all come to know through the ages from the popular Scooby cartoon.
They are all here from the 10,000 Volt Ghost to Miner 49er, not to mention one of my childhood favorites Captain Cutler’s Ghost and they add so much to the film and give it that familiar Scooby-Doo feel.
The monsters come into play as an anonymous masked villain wreaks mayhem on the city of Coolsville with a monster machine that re-creates classic Mystery Inc. foes. Scooby and the gang are quickly outed in Coolsville as the press tangles their words and all signs are saying they have lost their crime solving touch.
The same cast from the original film is back with Linda Cardellini as Velma, Sarah Michelle Gellar as Daphne, Freddy Prinze Jr. as Fred and Matthew Lillard as the bumbling Shaggy.
Cardellini and Lillard are exactly what you are looking for as two of the central figures of the movie, but things are just not right with the Gellar/Prinze couple as neither of them seem to fit the role, or can act the role for that matter, and shouldn’t the Daphne character be more attractive than Velma?
Anyhow, those two aside, this film works and offers everything you would hope for from a Scooby mystery especially from Matthew Lillard’s portrayal as Shaggy. I was able to tell that he fit the role simply from what I had seen of the first film and he delivered here.
The only thing that really didn’t quite fit was the inordinate amount of fart jokes that were just as unnecessary as they were un-funny, especially the scene where we get a shot of Shaggy holding up Scooby’s tail in preparation for a ten second fart on the fire breathing Miner 49er. I don’t mind crass, but Scooby’s corn hole shot was a bit too much for me to find humor in.
On a whole I enjoyed this movie, and it did remind me of what I enjoyed from the cartoon as a kid, which was really what I was looking for.
