Finally, for the first time in eight years, Warner Bros. Animation got off their backs and made a darker, more professional Scooby-Doo animated movie similar to their infamous "Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island," their excellent "Scooby-Doo and the Witch's Ghost," the not-so-great "Scooby-Doo and the Alien Invaders" and the fun "Scooby-Doo and the Cyber Chase." I have been WAITING for this ever since "Scooby-Doo and the Loch Ness Monster" came out and simply went with the "What's New Scooby-Doo" animation style.
Story-wise, it is a shame they go back to fake supernatural creatures once again, after "Scooby-Doo and the Goblin King" and the "Samurai Sword" movie. But it's got plenty of suspense and jump-scenes like the original movies did, though. They also go with a somewhat original plot for once, too! The gang has already come across too many tiki monsters, mummies, pirate ghosts, snow monsters and samurai ghosts that it seemed the writers were beginning to run out of ideas. But they REALLY surprised us with this one. The inclusion of Velma having a sister was fun, as was Daphne getting jealous over Fred going gaga over the lovely female assistant. Speaking of Fred, he isn't as stupidly-portrayed as he was in the previous films, or even "A Pup Named Scooby-Doo" and "What's New, Scooby-Doo." Scooby-Doo also has quite a bit of dialogue too, and they cleverly parodied the old formula here as well (such as a danger-prone Fred, and Shaggy using ventriloquism on a wolf puppet to mimic the famous "meddling kids" line.) Voices aren't too bad either. Sure, Frank Welker's Scooby-Doo still sounds like Brain from "Inspector Gadget," but I've pretty much gotten used to it by now. As for Matthew Lillard, he's actually a pretty good Shaggy! Sure, he's not as good as Casey Kasem, but he's better than Billy West and Scott Innes, and definitely better than Scott Menville! It does sound a little strange hearing the live-action Shaggy's voice coming out of the animated Shaggy, but after a while I got used to it. He also managed to make Shaggy sound hip and young again! The sound effects are also similar to the early made-for-video Scooby-Doo movies, only limiting the classic H-B sound effects to the Scooby and Shaggy scenes or exaggerated comedy sequences. They even managed to use the classic haunted "Castle Thunder" sound as one of the magic-spell sound effects (ala "The Powerpuff Girls"), but the other thunder sounds are pretty much identical to the earlier made-for-video Scooby-Doo movies, too.
The animation is also very good, too. As I mentioned, it is in a much darker style now, but the Scooby gang is drawn as how they appeared in the early 1970s, complete with wearing their original outfits! It looks much better than the "What's New Scooby-Doo"-esquire style of the past movies.
Overall, this is definitely a step up from the last several Scooby-Doo movies. It seems they're finally going in the right direction. Not only that, this film didn't even end with a Hanna-Barbera logo like the others did, which is actually somewhat of a good thing because Hanna-Barbera didn't make this movie; Warner Bros. Cartoons did. Definitely recommended!
