Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed

Some time back, I wrote this about SCOOBY-DOO: "Perhaps the greatest mystery is how this certain trainwreck turned out to be a fun, enjoyable picture."

SD2, while not a trainwreck, is bigger, louder, and not nearly as much fun. It falls victim to the sequel's standard pitfall: it gives us more and more and more of the same, but it doesn't give us much to hook our imaginations.

Bummer.

PS My child laughed all the way through it, so YSMMV. (Your Spawn's Mileage May Vary.)

Scooby-Doo

Some movies have "disaster" written all over them. Take an old cartoon, mix in some minor-league actors, and modernize the
proceedings with a generous sprinkling of "hip" contemporary references, and you have a movie that can't possibly go right.
SCOOBY-DOO is such a movie.

Perhaps the greatest mystery is how this certain trainwreck turned out to be a fun, enjoyable picture. The picture begins with a sequence straight out of the vintage cartoons, then adds a few twists to generate dramatic tension. From there, it's on to the next mystery and the inevitable, "And it would've worked, too, if it hadn't been for you meddling kids!"

SCOOBY-DOO's cast members sell their roles, it's a pleasure to look at the movie's sets, and the whole thing is much more fun than I'd expected.

What a pleasant surprise!