Scooby-Doo Review
by Ronald O. Christian (ronc AT europa DOT com)June 17th, 2002
Scooby-Doo (2002)
Freddie Prinze Jr., Sarah Michelle Geller, Matthew Lillard, Linda Cardellini, Rowan Atkinson
Zero stars
Well. That was horrible.
"Family" films have to tread a fine line -- keeping the kids interested and the adults awake at the same time. There's a few established ways to do this -- make the story compelling enough to hold the attention of both age groups, having different elements for different age groups, as in appealing to the kids with humor and adults with nostalgia, or write both kiddie and adult humor into the script, depending on the adult humor going over the kid's heads.
Scooby-Doo utterly fails to do any of these.
There *are*, honestly, elements which could have been the basis of a good story. I never liked the cartoon as a kid, (it was, in my opinion, the second worst H/B 'toon ever, just slightly behind Fat Albert) and would have enjoyed a good deconstruction of the characters and premise.
And we almost get that. Velma gets tired of Fred taking all the credit, and quits the team to work for NASA. Daphne becomes fed-up with being the damsel-in-distress ("you come with your own ransom note") takes karate lessons, and becomes a purple dominatrix. Scrappy (yes, he's really in the picture) curses like a dockworker and "marks his territory" by peeing on Daphne's dress. Daemons from the nether realms learn to act human by watching '50's socialization films. Velma wears a bulky red sweater on a tropical island, ("Nice sweater." "Thanks.") and then later, inexplicably, in a scene that would do R. Crumb credit, wears a bare midriff, plunging neckline, flowery-bra-showing..... red sweater. With a pleated skirt. Daphne's costume magically changes from scene to scene, but (with a single exception) are all variations on the purple micro-dress. (Over a purple bra and, oddly, black panties.....) When Fred and Daphne kiss, she pushes him away and says "Stop it, Fred, you'll out me".
Freud would have a field-day with this.
There may have been more of these little gems and easter-eggs in the film, but most of the film is so teeth-gratingly stupid that I spent the time massaging my temples and trying to keep my head from exploding.
In the cartoon, Shaggy was really the only human with any personality, and Matthew Lillard does an amazing job of bring Shaggy to life. Lillard acts like his life depended on it. Like the producers were holding his family hostage against the first weekend's receipts. Like he knew this was going to be the last movie of his career. He throws himself into his work, trying with every ounce of his being to carry the movie single-handedly. It doesn't work, of course, but does serve to make me interested in whatever else he might have done.
I could go on but it would just be a reiteration of "stupid", "silly", "inane", and "remember when Rowan Atkinson was funny?"
Daughter-unit owes me a lot for dragging me to see this. I think she may have to sit through Reign of Fire.
Zero stars.
Ron
http://roc85.home.attbi.com
"Protesters against the wearing of animal skins by humans unaccountably fail to throw paint over Hell's Angels."
-- Terry Pratchett
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