Scooby-Doo! – The Scooby gang get mad at each other and split up. A while later, they reunite with an invitation to Spooky Island where something strange is happening to the party loving young adults that go there. Packed with silliness and bright colours for kids, with a few adult jokes tossed in this is just a nice family movie using the classic characters from the cartoon. There’re fight scenes and body swaps which give the actors a bit to work with, it lets them show their talent. The old message of not everything is as it seems is well done in this one. It’s not a high quality, serious film but it suits Scooby-Doo as a ridiculous yet fun mystery adventure. I enjoyed it.

Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed – A proper live action tribute to the cartoon. This movie uses recognisable monsters that the gang have previously unmasked, turning the monsters real while a news reporter tears down the reputation of Mystery Inc. It shows how the characters all have insecurities and shows their strength in helping one another overcome them. We get dancing, jousting, and plenty more in this film that goes deep with the characters but keeps it’s silly Scooby style charm. Although of similar quality to the first one, I prefer this one as it plays on the real nostalgia factor of Scooby-Doo, the power of their friendship and lets us know that we can all achieve what we want if we get past our doubt. Again very enjoyable.

Extra

• I think the casting choices are perfect in these films. They might be quite silly but the actors really did justice to the characters.
• The only problem I can see with the cast is by appearance (not their acting). Velma is as good looking as Daphne which does steal a bit of her ‘pretty one’ purpose.
• Fred is as he should be. I’m happy to say that PC hadn’t hit too hard by this point and in the writing he’s allowed to be confident and reasonably clever as should be.
• Obviously, Shaggy and Scooby are the most important characters, everything about them was perfect, from the goofiness to self doubt they were written really well.
• Both movies had a truly awesome soundtrack with a mix of pop-punk and funky tunes holding everything together.