26- Turning Red- I just want to forget everything from it. I especially hated the part where the mom yells at the cashier. I deal with that too much at work to watch somebody I am supposed to root for do it.
25- Cars 3– Undoes the entire lesson of the first film.
23- Lightyear- This is not Buzz Lightyear, nor does it work as a stand alone movie. Chris Evans was a horrible replacement.
2 Tree Stars
22- Brave- Way too many idiot plots and bad comedy.
21- Onward- I just barely disliked it, so I do need to give it another shot at some point. I liked Barley and wished he was the sole protagonist. I hated Ian, the Mary Sue.
3 Tree Stars
20- Cars 2- Very solid Children’s movie.
19- Incredibles 2- Great beginning, but ruined by idiot plots at end.
18- Inside Out- Great animation and jokes but very predictable plot filled with idiot plots and an unlikable protagonist.
4 Tree Stars
17- Toy Story 4- Some big hiccups, but I really enjoyed it.
16- A Bug’s Life- Great villain.
15- The Good Dinosaur- The tone and Arlo are great.
14- Finding Dory- Mainly for the comedy and ending.
13- Cars- I really love the message, and I really think this helped me as a track athlete.
12- The Incredibles- We all know what is great about it, the dialogue and villains. I think the comedy brings it down, and I found the fights to be less interesting than Power Rangers fights.
11- Finding Nemo- The opening is amazing. I was blown away in theaters.
10- Wall-E- Hard to explain it, since so much of it is through tiny details in the animation.
5 Tree Stars
9- Soul- A return to form for Pixar, the great dual protagonists role with big emotional conflict between them.
Was this supposed to be a Speed Buggy movie or something, because this is distinctly not a Scooby-Doo movie. I know what you might be thinking- in Ghoul School there was no mystery. True, but at least in Ghoul School the characters distinctly acted like themselves. Here they actually refuse food for being gross. What am I watching?
My brother and I once borrowed this from Blockbuster, and the fact we only watched it once is not a good sign. Rewatching it now I see why. This movie is just so slow. It is actually slower than the other 2 films made at this time, but there is so little going on.
It starts in a race and… Watching races in frame by frame is weird. It goes no movement-> Movement -> No movement-> Movement. Sorry, I just have so little to talk about.
I promise no more pacing complaints for a while (but they will come back later). Shaggy, Scooby, and Scrappy are now racers with their usual actors. I think if they were Fred, Daphne, and Velma this would all make way more sense, and apparently they dominate and the crowds come for no reason but them. Shaggy has a girlfriend voiced by B.J. Ward (Velma in the first 4 DTV films interestingly), and she throws her pom-poms every single cheer and next shot they are magically back in her hands. That bugged me as a 7ish year old, and 26 year old me is perfectly fine with that. For some reason I distinctly remembered her looking just like Sally May from Boo Brothers. Shaggy wins
To what I can tell from online the fans of this movie hate Boo Brothers. That is ironic since I see Jim Ryan was the sole writer of both films. I guess he really wanted them to be different.
Meanwhile apparently the monsters do a race every year because… Dracula hosts it, and I think he just likes to do it, and the others win prizes from him. All the audience members are forced to come and hate it, so I really cannot… I am reading way to into this. Their werewolf deserted them. I was hoping the werewolf would be Fangface, but further research showed me he is not actually Hanna-Barbera. That last sentence sounds more unrealistic than anything in this movie.
Due to spells in a book they see they can make a werewolf, and it has to be Shaggy. Obviously this movie hopes the audience goes with all the unexplained magical traditions and just enjoy the races.
The racing monsters are two witches, Frankenstein, Skeleton, a swamp monster, and a mummy. 2 monster movies in a row and none have my favorite, The Invisible Man. Dracula is just a pathetic villain. He sounds just like Sesame Street’s The Count, and he constantly screams “no, no, no” when his plans fail.
For minions he has the hunch bunch. One has a British Accent and the other talks like a caveman. I like them… for about 10 minutes. They completely overstay their welcome and their gimmick wears thin quick. Part of it is they eventually turn Shaggy into a werewolf, and Shaggy should really make better use of his claws and teeth. Remember Dracula needs Shaggy alive and healthy for the long term. Shaggy has no reason not to tear Dracula to pieces.
The commercials for this movie were incredibly vague on the plot, but I knew Shaggy gets turned into a monster. That means 7 year old me wanted to see him be a monster and use it. Even if they do not make him fight anything (they also did Super Friends. They can make him fight) he could say use a superior werewolf nose to sniff his way out of danger or something. None of this happens. Being a werewolf is just a McGuffin to stop being.
The Hunch Bunch try and fail two nights to turn him into a werewolf, and on the third try they succeed. With him becoming a werewolf 15:54 in the film then wastes time with a hiccup plot. Googie keeps whining about Shaggy’s hiccups and that is the plot point for a while as both she and Shaggy do not realize he is now a werewolf until 5 minutes later for Shaggy and 6 for Googie It just makes her seem so whiny in a very slow paced scene. If my hands were now that fuzzy I would notice instantly. I hate it when it takes them so long to notice they now look different.
The Hunch Bunch get them thanks to their Batcopter.
They stole my helicopter!
After this are some slow paced scenes where they are locked up and they try to escape. Even Dracula gets frustrated with the slow pacing at least twice. Part of the problem is unlike last movie the monsters all have the same personality. They are just not interesting.
Dracula finally gets him to race by promising to turn him back if he comes in first place and bring all four back. They go on a test drive 4/9ths the way done with the movie, and this is the first racing since the opening.
I noticed they reused some music from Boo Brothers. That makes me a little happy. These few minutes are some good driving scenes. Before the race Dracula ruins Shaggy’s engines.
With 40 minutes left out of 90 the race starts.
The crowd is not interested. At first I enjoyed their comedy routine since I am also not interested, but again it is nowhere near funny enough to last, and they spend so much time on it.
Shaggy fixes his engine, and they have a system where Googie and Scrappy drive ahead to warn them of the 50 gazillion traps set by The Hunch Bunch. This gets old immediately. A recurring gag is thanks to their warning Scooby and Shaggy do not fall for the trap and every monster gets stuck in it. Shouldn’t the trap be designed to only get Shaggy and Scooby? This just last so long and is so episodic, and I got so bored of this repetition.
Why do I love racing movies like Cars and Fast and the Furry and hate ones like this and Cars 3? The ones I like are about the journey, not winning, that is the whole message about them. The ones I hate are about solving a problem by achieving first place or everything is lost.
This is a much better movie than Arabian Knights, but I miss that movie. It was way funner to review than this.
I started reviewing these films since I really wanted to praise Scrappy, but like last movie he has very little to do here, and this is his last major appearance (maybe if a live action movie was made in 2002 that would have fixed that). He and Googie did not both have to be in this movie, and he honestly has very few lines this movie too. Last movie he at least had some good jokes.
Eventually Dracula finally has a good plan. Eliminate Scrappy and Googie. Shaggy and Scooby save them and are then immediately back in front, so that had no point either somehow. Then back to The Hunch Bunch doing the same thing as they have all movie.
At point Dracula just removes Shaggy motor as a referee. Why did he not try that earlier, and it still does not stop Shaggy from winning.
After winning Dracula does not turn him back so they steal the book and run off with Dracula in hot pursuit. So this entire long, long, long race was pointless. I do not want to see yet another chase scene. I am so tired of these. Why can’t Dracula just make another guy into a werewolf? Then after he gets turned back into a human they again act like the moral this whole time was do not get the hiccups. No appreciating where you are, seeing the value in the seemingly useless, or getting out of your comfort zone like the last three movies respectively. Even Goes Hollywood had a better moral than this.
No wonder we never rewatched this, it sucks. I fully expected when I went back here to give it 2 Tree Stars, but it gets 1. The entire thing promised was Shaggy as a monster, and that really had no impact that could not be replaced with them just getting captured, the action is repetitive, the characters do not feel like themselves, and it is so slow.
So there are 5 Direct to TV Scooby movies. They got a 1, 4, 3, 1, and a 1. They are definitely hit or miss. I do not know if this is better or worse than Goes Hollywood but it is better than Arabian Nights. At least it is better than some Pixar movies. Next time-
The Animation Historian 