The Scooby Doo movie that looks at the origin story of how Shaggy met the beloved Great Dane. It also shows how Mystery Inc was formed.

Minutes into this film I turned it off because the art style was so far from what I know of Scooby Doo, Scooby’s voice acting was alright but Shaggy sounded like a squeaky little girl which didn’t fit him at all.

Once I finally decided to force my way through the film I found that Fred, Daphne and Velma turn up soon after, as children they’re fairly accurate. They join Shaggy and Scoob to solve their first mystery. Luckily the film isn’t about kids, we get a time jump to a point where the gang has grown up a bit and they’re sat talking to Simon Cowell about starting a proper mystery solving business. (Weird, I know, just go with it.)

Cowell proceeds to kick Shaggy and Scooby out of the gang, the pair then go on to join a superhero called the Blue Falcon. The enemy is then revealed to be non other than Dick Dastardly who has a spaceship that looks a bit like his Wacky Races car. Dastardly has a terribly evil plan (but what motivates him is sweet) and it requires Scooby Doo to put it into action.

The film goes on from there and just gets better as it progresses with appearances from other old cartoon characters like Captain Caveman. It’s silly, strange and makes some level of sense as a story about the power of friendship, plus there’s a hero who learns how to believe in himself.

Daphne and Velma were done very well, each taking on their respective roles as the emotional pretty girl and the intelligent nerdy one. Scooby Doo is also done quite well, he gets a few moments with Shaggy that pay tribute to the series old fans will enjoy. Fred is a disappointment, they call him the tank which means that instead of the courageous leader that can almost keep up with Velma that we should get, we instead get a bit of a brainless fool who only loves his van and wouldn’t know a plan if it slapped him in the face. Then there’s Shaggy, he started to adopt a more recognisable speech pattern but it never felt like he was done right, I wanted to like him but it wasn’t the Shaggy I know, I just couldn’t adjust to him no matter how I tried.

And I’ll be fair, I adjusted to the new art style and the characters looked fairly accurate to how I think they should.

Scooby Doo – like a few films I’ve seen recently – was a major part of my childhood and if you can get past the first half of this movie you’ll find something that has a decent level of quality, it gave me a chuckle or two (especially the unmasking scene). Shaggy and Fred were done badly in my eyes but as a whole the film was enjoyable with a sort of emotional conclusion. I especially liked the remake of the theme tune intro. I think I would recommend this but you need to wait a bit for it to start getting good.