Scooby-Doo *** (2000, Matthew Lillard, Freddie Prinze Jr, Sarah Michelle Gellar) – Classic Movie Review 1437

Scooby-Doo, where are you? Oh, there you are, going barking mad as a big-screen cartoon character in an amiably daft live-action teen movie adventure, in which the Mystery Inc gang investigate strange goings on at an island resort. After an acrimonious break up, the gang have gone their separate ways and have been apart for two years, until they each receive an invitation to Spooky Island.

Director Raja Gosnell’s big-budget 2000 spinoff shows the talking pooch’s come a long way since the Seventies Hanna-Barbera TV series, and so has the bendy Matthew Lillard since he starred in Scream, raising most of the film’s laughs as Scooby’s best friend, the scruffy, bumbling idiot Shaggy.

Real-life duo Freddie Prinze Jr and Sarah Michelle Gellar send up their own sexy screen images as Fred and Daphne, the other members of the crime-solving team, Mystery Inc, along with Linda Cardellini as Velma. Rowan Atkinson (as Emile Mondavarious, the owner of Spooky Island), Isa Fisher (as Mary Jane, Shaggy’s girlfriend) and Pamela Anderson (as herself) also appear. Neil Fanning provides the voice of the animated Scooby Doo, Shaggy’s best friend.

The amiable cast and the genial mood are the main assets of the film. So Scooby-do get on down to a screen near you for this slick and snazzy popcorn movie. The film was intended to have a much darker tone, poking fun at the original series, but after the cast signed on it became more family-friendly. Marijuana references were removed, apart from the use of Mary Jane as the name of Shaggy’s love interest.

It’s not a great movie but it’s hard to dislike and just maybe it’s worth three woofs. Woof, woof, woof!

Filming took place in and around Queensland, Australia, on an estimated budget of $84 million.The film was released on June 14 2002, and despite many negative reviews, it grossed $275million worldwide.

Gellar won Choice Movie Actress in a Comedy at the Teen Choice Awards. Prinze Jr was nominated for a Razzie for Worst Supporting Actor, but he lost the award to Hayden Christensen for Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones.

Gellar and Prinze Jr married on 1 September 2002 and they have two children.

Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed followed in 2004.

© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1437

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com/

The Mystery Machine from the film at San Diego Comic-Con International in 2013.