Scoob! Parent Guide
Digital on demand: Fine for kids, but incredibly soporific for adults. If you want something to nap on the couch to, this could be your movie.
Parent Movie Review
Shaggy (Will Forte) and his canine companion, Scooby-Doo (Frank Welker), have been a team since childhood. With friends Fred (Zac Efron), Daphne (Amanda Seyfried), and Velma (Gina Rdoriquez), they’ve come together to form Mystery, Inc. Their antics in unmasking local villains (usually old men dressed in outlandish costumes on their own property) quickly escalate, and soon they’re taking the Mystery Machine on the road, looking for more supernatural trouble. But when Simon Cowell (voiced by, believe it or not, Simon Cowell) offers to buy the group, he has one condition: Shaggy and Scooby-Doo will have to go. Feeling hurt, the spurned friends go off into the cold night, only to become entangled in a dangerous battle between supervillain Dick Dastardly (Jason Isaacs) and the heroic Blue Falcon (Mark Wahlberg). But soon, Shaggy begins to feel that he’s losing Scooby to their new friends, and the situation starts to spiral downwards…
My first gripe, which will only be shared by people roughly old enough to remember the end of the last ice age, is the voice of Shaggy. Throughout my childhood, Shaggy was voiced by the incomparable Casey Kasum, and despite Will Forte’s best efforts, Shaggy’s new voice just feels…wrong. Your kids won’t notice, unless you’ve been showing them old re-runs, but it was enough to drive me slightly insane for the entire runtime.
Also on the list of “things the kids won’t notice but will drive you crazy” - this plot is directly out of a can. Probably an expired one. I can usually focus on a movie if I’m not trying to do anything else, but even staring directly at the screen with no distractions, I kept having to rewind because everything was so blandly predicable that I’d zone out for a few minutes - only to do it all over again once I’d caught up.
The advantage of this bland predictability is that this is perfectly appropriate for children. And they will probably enjoy every frenetic, unoriginal minute. Even compared to some other kids movies (like, say, Teen Titans Go! To the Movies, which made me want to flee the theatre, never to return), Scoob! is almost completely innocuous. Apart from the comic slapstick violence in scenes like robots being crushed by dumpsters and characters being punched through walls, there is literally nothing to worry about in this movie. Tragically, there is also nothing worth paying attention to. Although, if extended quarantine has started giving you mild insomnia, this may be a cure for that little problem, but at current rental prices of $19.99 for 48 hours, there are probably cheaper ways to knock yourself out.
Directed by Tony Cervone. Starring Frank Welker, Will Forte, and Zac Efron. Running time: 94 minutes. Theatrical release May 15, 2020. Updated July 27, 2020Watch the trailer for Scoob!
Scoob!
Rating & Content Info
Why is Scoob! rated PG? Scoob! is rated PG by the MPAA for some action, language and rude/suggestive humor.
Violence: There are frequent depictions of comic slapstick violence and scenes of peril.
Sexual Content: None.
Profanity: None.
Alcohol / Drug Use: None.
Page last updated July 27, 2020
Scoob! Parents' Guide
Shaggy struggles with Scoob’s new relationship with Blue Falcon. How does he come to terms with it? What does he learn from that experience?
Loved this movie? Try these books…
There are a plethora of children’s books about dogs, including Because of Winn-Dixie, Old Yeller, and Ribsy. Older readers looking for vintage mysteries may enjoy books in the Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew series, both of which feature plucky youths unravelling devious plots. Eric Wilson’s novels, starting with Murder on The Canadian, are a slightly grittier take on kids’ crime fiction.
Home Video
The most recent home video release of Scoob! movie is July 21, 2020. Here are some details…
Related home video titles:
The live-action Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed features a similar subplot about Shaggy and Scooby’s perceived uselessness within Mystery, Inc.
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