Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
Do not hate SCOOBY-DOO.
Pity it.
This is not a film worthy of passions in one direction or another. This is going to be a relatively brief review. I just don’t have that much to say about it. Freaking out about it and screaming and pissing seems ridiculous. It’s SCOOBY-DOO. Unlike Knowles, I’ve never really viewed the source material as holy writ. Yes... as TalkBackers have so astutely pointed out... I am a fan of Craig Titley’s early draft of the script. In the end, he got co-story credit, but very little of what made his draft work remains in the film that was finally made. And before you start screaming about how Craig is my friend and how I’m biased, I’d like to point out that I read his draft, reviewed it, and championed it long before I ever met Craig. He just happens to be as good a guy as he is a writer.
And, despite the accusations that have been made, I don’t have any sort of grudge or vendetta against James Gunn. I thought his book was pretty great. TROMEO & JULIET is... well... it’s a Troma film. I mean... what else can you really say about it? It’s gleeful and freaky and pretty consistently chaotic. It’s a very specific kind of mess, and it’s a very good example of that particular kind of mess.
My strongest reservations about this film came from actually seeing footage. Before that, I wasn’t anywhere near as invested in disliking the film as Harry was. Like I said, he has a genuine fondness for all things SCOOBY. Personally, I’m not a fan of the show, and beyond that, I’m sick to freakin’ death of “post-modern” jokes about SCOOBY-DOO. During the Great Catastrophic Stand-Up Comedy Glut of the ‘80s, every pinhead in a suit jacket and a skinny tie did their SCOOBY-DOO material. Snickering cracks about Shaggy smoking dope and Velma being a lesbian and Fred and Daphne sneaking away together all the time for a reason. “And I would have gotten away with it, too, if it wasn’t for you meddling kids” is as played as a punchline as “Where’s the Beef?” or Macarena references. It’s not witty. It’s not fresh. It’s been done. Last year, Kevin Smith did it with R-rated abandon in one of the funnier non-sequiter moments in JAY & SILENT BOB STRIKE BACK. Smith’s use of “doggy lipstick” is genuinely subversive and shocking, something I didn’t think a SCOOBY-DOO reference could be anymore.
If it’s postmodern bite you’re looking for, don’t bother with the film. The producers and cast admit it freely; whatever edgy material they shot for the film hit the cutting room floor. I love how they make it sound like it was a calm, calculated decision they made one afternoon over tea. It wasn’t the panicked result of a couple of terrifying test screenings where parents were irate at the inappropriate material. No... it wasn’t a decision that almost left you with a film that was too short to be considered feature length. Not at all. And as a result of refiguring the material AFTER they shot it, what they've ended up with is neither post-modern or faithful. It's akin to sitting next to someone who keeps snickering at a private joke, and when you ask them to explain it, they realize they don't know exactly what it was that made them laugh in the first place.
SCOOBY-DOO is a property that primarily exists to service one audience: children. I acknowledge that. There are different criteria, obviously, between a film I would recommend to adults and a film I would call “good for kids.”
And SCOOBY-DOO isn’t good for either.
As a film, removed from target audiences and demographic targeting and marketing hype, SCOOBY-DOO is a failure. The opening sequence, designed to show the members of Mystery, Inc. in their prime, is lethargic, with a lousy sense of motion or geography. Making a cartoon film is a tricky proposition, and part of the reason for that is plain and simple physics. You can do things in cartoons that you just can’t do in live-action. Oh, sure... Rhythm & Hues can create the image, and, technically speaking, you can “do” anything now. But there are certain movements and actions and character attributes that just don’t play right. The eye isn’t fooled at all. The few attempts to show cartoon physics at work during this sequence are dull, uninspired. This is very much the 2002 model of CASPER or THE FLINTSTONES, comic book adaptations that drown in design and FX without anything that even slightly resembles an honest beat or an inspired gag. Even worse, I’d say the majority of the work done on Scooby himself is sub-standard. It’s an ugly design, and by the end of the film, it hadn’t grown on me a bit. Warner made the mistake of having several real great danes at the afterparty, and just looking at one of them, it was obvious how poor a job R&H did giving their digital “star” any sense of character.
It was strange to sit behind several rows of children and watch how bored they were by the entire thing. I figured there was a chance this would play to a younger crowd, especially now that Warner trimmed it back specifically for the kids, but it didn’t seem to work for them, either. Maybe if your child is a rabid fan of all things DOO, there’s a chance this will work for them, but this commits one of the cardinal sins for a film aimed at this age group: it’s boring. If they were going to just aim at a piece of silly, all-ages entertainment, then at the very least, they should have worked to create some set-pieces that would please the crowd. There’s not a single sequence in the movie that pays off, though. There’s no big gags. One moment that hints at something funny involves the souls of the four main characters getting switched, so all of a sudden, the voice of Velma comes out of Fred, and the voice of Shaggy comes out Daphne, and so on. When Sarah Michelle Gellar grabs her stomach and says in Matthew Lillard’s voice, “Like, wow, Daphne, don’t you ever EAT?!?” it’s a genuine laugh. It doesn’t require you to snicker at inappropriate entendre. It’s exactly what Shaggy would say trapped in a waif-like frame. But that scene is over as soon as it begins, and that one little flash of wit is quickly overwhelmed by the noise and chaos of the miserably unfunny ending.
If there is one sin that towers above all the others in this film, it is the use of Scrappy-Doo. I quit watching the Saturday morning show long before he was introduced, but he seems as universally despised by fans as Jar Jar Binks is by STAR WARS fanatics. Why anyone thought it was clever to give him this much screentime is beyond me. He’s a loathesome little troll from the moment he appears, and, yes, that’s part of the joke. It still doesn’t make it any more pleasant to sit through.
I want to close this review on a positive note. I’m going to forgo any bashing of Raja Gosnell and Freddie Prinze because it seems pointless. Neither of them has proven to be especially talented, so why attack them for their shortcomings? I honestly believe this is the best that either of them is capable of. That’s why I suggested pity might be more appropriate than hate.
Linda Cardellini and Sarah Michelle Gellar do as much as they can with what they are given to do, but their roles are so underwritten that they both come across as willing, but stranded. In the end, only Matthew Lillard is able to rise above the material. I told Harry last night as we spoke that he is going to owe Lillard a public apology after he sees his work in the movie. He’s that good. He makes you believe that he is acting opposite someone instead of just staring at an empty space. And, no, I don’t mean Prinze. I mean the dog. Lillard moves beyond mere impersonation, even though he has somehow stolen Casey Kasem’s voice completely, and manages to even inspire some sense of emotional connection in a few moments. If I were to say anything positive about SCOOBY-DOO, it is that it gave me some hope that Lillard will become an interesting performer, worth watching, as soon as his agents stop teaming him with Prinze and sticking him in crappy youth market films. Lillard’s got too much going on as an actor to get stuck as half of this decade’s answer to Corey & Corey. He’s a gifted comic performer, and his work here makes me want to see him in something great sometime soon.
"Moriarty" out.
