Scoob!
universalTony Cervone's Scoob! is the long-awaited cinematic reboot of a long-running and much-beloved franchise. Crafting a new animated aesthetic, and allegedly a new cinematic universe, as well as employing a new cast signifies Cervone's attempt at a fresh start. While often fun and admirable, it is lost in the saturated market trying to replicate rival series, such as the Despicable Me franchise, rather than standing on its own two feet.
There are a multitude of positives here, but with every engaging factor, there is an underlying issue that comes from it. The animation style, for instance, looks fantastic on screen and is crafted continuously to be engaging, however, similarities to other contemporaries such as the aforementioned Despicable Me franchise, or even Pixar's Up! – which was released over ten years ago – become far too apparent before long. Then comes the humour.
It is clear that Scoob! is trying to succeed at engaging with its young target audience, but also appeal to parents. This issue plagues most animated features, but where Pixar cleverly handles this issue through stunning explorations of thematic weight, Scoob! implements contemporary pop culture humour. Most of the humour is, in fact, self-referential and self-detrimental, explicitly surrounding the characters of Scooby and Shaggy, but also Blue Falcon voiced by none other than Mark Whalberg. While it is not bad by any means, it adds neither that much of entertainment value, considering the multitude of material the four credited screenwriters could have crafted. To have four credited screenwriters and three-story credits for the feature working in such a one-note monotonous direction is more bizarre than disappointing . In the same breath, the feature doesn't stretch itself over or wrestle its genre yet ends up developing into a superhero detective story of all things. Eventually, the story element simply does not live up to the hype.
Story aside, it is arguably the selection of the new cast where the production has done a great job. Gone is the live-action iconic cast of Freddie Prinze Jr., Sarah Michelle Gellar, Linda Cardellini and Matthew Lillard in starring performances, and in its place digital renditions of the characters with voice performances ranging from Zac Efron, Amanda Seyfried, Gina Rodriguez and Will Forte are present. Apart from Rodriguez and Efron, the cast list completely fails to implement personality, humour and charisma for the audience to engage. Even then, the reason Rodriguez and Efron have the most depth is the aforementioned self-detrimental humour that takes centre stage; to call it depth is perhaps a stretch. Yet, the main issue for the core cast list not being engaging or remotely interesting is the fact that they simply are not given enough screen time.
Even with expectations and estimations at a total minimum, Tony Cervone's Scoob! still manages to be both sub-par and a missed opportunity. The animation aesthetic does little to impress, the narrative is one-note and not as captivating, and the humour is dire at best. Furthermore, the core voice performers are pushed aside and replaced with Mark Wahlberg's superhero having an existential crisis and a robotic dog – voiced by Ken Jeong – that is passive-aggressive at every turn. Is it still a far cry for James Gunn and Raja Gosnell to craft a third entry with Mystery Inc.?
