It's Monday. That means Scooby-Doo! Time to check out the next 5 Scooby movies.


               

I am pretty easy to entertain. I know that when I'm watching a 'kids' movie that I shouldn't expect Macbeth. So I go in with that point of view. But sometimes, sometimes you get something that is just bad.

“Scooby-Doo! and the Monster of Mexico” is bad. It is probably the worst Scooby-Doo movie since "Scooby-Doo! in Arabian Nights". It isn't as bad as that movie but it's pretty close.

Normally I would give a quick rundown of the plot and then talk about a few things that interested me in the movie, but not this time. I’m going in-depth on this one.

In the last review I mentioned that these movies are not very good with accurately representing cryptids. This is another example of that. The monster this time around is the Chupacabra, which Velma describes as the Mexican version of Bigfoot. Not only is the design of the Chupacabra inaccurate, I know that the Chupacabra is not real and as such no design can be considered 'accurate' but just go with it, but the statement that the legend is Mexican is also wrong. The Chupacabra is a Puerto Rican legend.
I hate when people make that mistake. Puerto Rico doesn't have that many cool Urban Legends that have come to pop culture. Being Puerto Rican I like that we have at least one. So stop attributing it Mexico. They have enough cool shit as it is.

Anyway. Let's get to this movie.

This movie starts off on a bad foot. One of the first things we see is a Chihuahua. That's a little stereotypical. Fun Fact, there are packs of feral Chihuahua's running throughout Mexico. The dog is owned by Jorge whose father, Alejo, is pen pals with Fred.  Alejo has invited Fred and the gang to spend some time in his resort. Soon after the invitation was made the city of Veracruz, where the resort is located, is being terrorized by the Chupacabra.

In the opening scene, where we meet Alejo, his son and dog (the dog's name is Chiquita by the way) they have a run in with the Chupacabra.

Soon after Fred and gang show up. Fred is shocked to learn just how big Alejo's resort is. There is a scene here where Fred sees a bunch of kids in a pool and asks Alejo if they are all his, I'm sure it wasn’t meant to be, but this scene comes off a little racist. Alejo tells Fred that the kids are family, but not all his children.

Alejo introduces the gang to the rest of his family, his wife Sofia, his mother Doña Delores, his brother Luis and Luis’s fiancé Charlene. One of these things is not like the others.

While the Gang is getting acquainted with Alejo's family a man named Señor Fuente appears. He is one of our Red Herrings. Although it is blatantly obvious from the start of this who the bad guy is. They weren't even trying, to be honest.

Fuente wants to buy the resort and Alejo doesn't want to sell. The problem is that the Chupacabra has chased away Alejo's guests.

After the gang settles in for the night Scooby and Shaggy hear a noise that startles them. They get the rest of the gang, and low and behold they find Chupacabra tracks. And with that they are on the case.

The next morning the gang, Alejo, and Luis set out to find the Chupacabra. Before leaving Charlene gives Luis a charm for good luck, an actual charm. She gives him a literal good luck charm.

They are unsuccessful in their search and return to the Mystery Machine only to find that someone has scrawled a warning on it. They are told to leave or they won't live to see tomorrow. The gang does not heed this warning.

That night the gang splits up with Scooby and Shaggy staying with the Mystery Machine. It isn't long until Scooby and Shaggy find out that the Mystery Machine's brakes have been tampered with. While Scooby and Shaggy are dealing with that Alejo and Luis, who have been paired up together, are attacked by the Chupacabra. They get separated and Alejo ends up dangling from a cliff. Luis shows up later to save him and mentions that the Chupacabra knocked him out. The brothers, Fred, Daphne and Velma eventually meet up with Scooby and Shaggy. Later at a gas station, as the van is getting repaired, we learn that Luis does not have a bump on his head.
                                      

What happens next is really stupid filler. The gang drive along and comes across a museum. They decide to check it out. Once they arrive Daphne ends up getting captured. This leads to the gang ending up at some Aztec pyramids. They find Daphne and are soon accused of stealing artifacts and are chased by tourists. The tourists are all riled up thanks to a talking bird.

I should mention that through out the movie we are told about Mr. Smiley, who is a Walt Disney type. He is all about making inroads into Mexico. He is responsible for the museum and animatronic talking bird.

After all that filler they return home so that we can continue with our plot.

We cut to the next day, which is the Day of the Dead. Here portrayed like Halloween. The gang, Alejo, and his family head to the cemetery. It is there that Alejo's father rises from the grave and tells him he must sell the land.

While that is happening Fred discovers that Luis's charm is actually a tracking device. They use the charm and  learn that Mr. Smiley is behind everything and was trying to get the resort.

We also learn that Charlene was in on it the whole time, and was pretending to love Luis. That by the way was one of the harshest things I have ever seen in one of these movies.

By the way the little plot line with Luis and his missing head bump, was explained with Luis just being scared and hiding while his brother was attacked.

So that was that movie. I hated it. As far as I'm concerned it is the second worst Scooby-Doo movie, Arabian Nights is still the worst.

But this movie did have one thing going for it. The voice acting, mainly one voice actor in particular. The character of Doña Dolores was played by Rita Moreno. If you don't know who Rita Moreno is, what is wrong with you? She is probably the greatest Hispanic Actress of all time. A woman who has won an Oscar, a Tony, an Emmy, a Grammy and a Golden Globe, among numerous other awards.

Even if you don't know her name you know her from her role in West Side Story. She of all people was in this movie. How crazy is that?

I should mention that Rita Moreno is a Puerto Rican playing a Mexican in a film that doesn't know the Chubacabra is Puerto Rican.

Speaking of Voice acting this is the last time you will hear Nicole Jaffe as Velma, and Heather North as Daphne. They will be replaced by Mindy Cohn and Grey DeLisle going forward.

I have spent way too much time on this film. I'm going to rate and move on.

2 out of 10

If I were to ask you what the most famous Cryptid in the world was, what would you say? Most of you would ask me what a Cryptid was, but after that you would probably give me the same answer, The Loch Ness Monster. To be fair you might say Big foot. But let's not dwell on that.

In this Movie Scooby and the Gang investigate Nessy. This is “Scooby Doo! and the Loch Ness Monster“.

The set up for this one is very simple. Daphne, who is Scottish,  has a cousin who has invited her and the gang to the Blake familial home. So the gang pack up and make their way to Blake Castle.

Daphne’s cousin, named Shannon, is hosting a Highland games event. That is where big burly men do manly things, like toss giant logs. The only problem is that the Loch Ness Monster is screwing things up. As usual the gang has no idea about that.

This movie has a large cast. Aside from the gang and Shannon you have Dell Chillman a Nessie fanatic, Professor Fiona Pembrooke a Scientist researching Nessie, Sir Locksley the director of the Scottish Natural History Museum, The Haggart brothers and their father.

The large cast makes the movie feel bigger than it is, and helps with the mystery. There are so many suspects it’s hard to point the finger at one person at first.

At first I was pretty sure the Haggart’s were behind everything, that’s partially right, but then I realized that Professor Fiona Pembrooke had to be the guy.  The movie spoon feeds you that one.

She did have help from the Haggart brothers, so I was partially right about that.

The Professor is a true believe in the Loch Ness Monster, she used to work for Sir Ian Locksley, but he fired her because she was obsessed. She decided that the only way she was going to prove the monster was real was with Locksley’s help. So she faked the attacks to draw him in.

What she didn’t count on was that Sir Ian is a giant dick. He took over not only the investigation but the entire Loch. Then his crew mutinied and tried to “capture” Nessie. I put the word ‘capture’ in quotes because their plan was use a harpoon gun. You don’t capture something with a harpoon gun, you kill it. They were going to kill Nessie.

That doesn’t happen. The gang solves the case and  unveils the Professor as the bad guy.

This is another case of someone coming up with a really intricate, convoluted plan that at it’s core is stupid and unnecessary. At the end of the film we learn that Nessie is real. Sir Ian finds some evidence that causes him to doubt his previous disbelief. Professor Pembrooke then shows him pictures she had taken that show the actual monster, pictures that she had from the beginning of the movie.  She had evidence but instead of just showing him that to begin with, she decided to build a Nessie sub. There is something wrong with that woman, but in a kind of awesome way.

The thing is, now her word means nothing. Why would you trust evidence from someone who has been shown to be a fraud? 

You wouldn’t. Unless you’re Sir Ian. He agrees to help Pembrooke in her search. Just goes to show you, if you lie and cheat, you’ll get exactly what you want.






               

                        

                         

I like this movie. The animation was a little better, I think the change in the character models helped, and the story was fun. It wasn't quite run of the mill and actually had me guessing for a few minutes. The voice acting was fine, I really like Mindy Cohn's Velma and Grey DeLisle is a very good Daphne. Plus we get Phil Lamar as one of the Haggart brothers, which is nice.

This is an above average Scooby film and worth checking out if you want some light entertainment,

7 out of 10

From the Lochs of Scotland to the Shores of Hawaii. The next movie is “Aloha, Scooby-Doo!”.  The gang traveling to different ‘lands’ is going to be a theme for a lot of these movies. I have no problem with that, but sometimes you just want a haunted theme park.

The gang is heading to Hawaii thanks to a free trip they got from “Goha Hawaii” a surfing company that is interested in some of Daphne’s designs. In this movie Daphne is a bit of a fashion designer. I guess that fits with her character. To be honest Daphne has always been the hardest for me to get a hold on character wise. When the show first started she was nothing more than a damsel in distress. In the past few decades the series has tried to add to her character, and has succeeded, but I still can’t put my finger on her definite character trait.  In “Be Cool Scooby-Doo!” she is portrayed as wacky and random, in the best of ways, which is a completely new take on her. But I digress.

Let’s get to the plot of this movie. There is a big surf contest going on. The contest used to be for locals only but is now open to everyone. Apparently this has angered the evil Wiki-Tiki spirit, our monster for the movie.  The spirit may also be up in arms over some land development on sacred ground. 

In, what my be an ode to Jaws, the Mayor of the island refuses to shut the tournament down. This means that it’s up to the gang to save the day.

There is a pretty big group of suspects in this movie. You have the local surf champ Manu Tuiama (voiced by Mario Lopez), his girlfriend Snookie (Tia Carrere), and best friend Little Jim. The mayor Molly Quinn and “Goha Hawaii” representative Jared Moon (Played by none other than Adam West).  There is also an old island woman the gang meets known as Auntie Mahina. 

Before I get more into the characters and the reveal I want to talk about the Monster Wiki-Tiki.  The Tiki mask and surfing gives the design an very unique look. What really stands out is that the monster is always accompanied by little monsters with a similar look called Tiny Tiki’s. I swore those things were trained monkey’s.

I said before that these movies should feel bigger than a regular episode of Scooby-Doo. This one does. The location allows for some great chase scenes and set pieces.  While the animation is a little flat, the bright cartoony style works in it's own way.

So who’s the bad guy?

Well, the Wiki-Tiki can surf, and only one of the people we’ve met so far can do that.  It should be obvious that Manu is the bad guy, but after his girlfriend is taken and he goes missing there is just enough doubt to make the mystery interesting.

Until the reveal. Manu and Snookie (who is a expert in Rocket Science and Robotics) are behind everything. Manu was Wiki-Tiki and the Tiny Tiki’s were robots created and controlled by Snookie. They did all of this in the hopes of buying land on the cheap, which they can then sell for the aforementioned land development. This is a Scooby story about a Real Estate scam. How weird is that?

There was something about this movie that I really liked. Maybe it was the setting, the story, or the great voice acting, I can’t really put my finger on it. All I know is that this was a fun outing.  Only slightly let down by the animation.

The voice acting (Adam West!) was great, and the story was well crafted. This isn’t one of the best Scooby movies but it is fun.

6 out of 10

“Scooby-Doo! In Where’s my Mummy?” is a hard movie to talk about. On the one hand I don’t want to give away the ending but on the other I can’t talk about it without doing so. Which is why I’m am going to ask you to watch the movie. It’s a good Scooby movie that, if you’re a fan, you should watch. If you don’t plan on doing that, have already done so, or don’t care about spoilers than read on. Otherwise, you have been warned.

This movie, from the beginning, is a beast of a different color. To start with the gang is not together. The last time one of these movies started with the gang apart was Zombie Island, which is good company to be in.  Fred, Daphne, Scooby, and Shaggy are heading to Egypt to surprise Velma who is helping to restore the Sphinx.

I should back up a bit. When the movie opens we see Velma, at the dig, making a huge discovery.

The gang gets lost on the way to the dig and end up in the desert. They are saved by Amahl Ali Akbar an Egyptian Nomad. He leads them to a town, that is in the middle of a drought. Eventually the end up at the dig.

When they arrive they meet a discredited TV host named Rock Rivers (played by Jeremy Piven) who was known for the show “Fear Facers”.  Rock informs the gang about a curse that has to do with Cleopatra and the Sphinx. After that Scooby catches Velma’s scent and leads the gang to her.

Velma introduces the gang to Omar and shows them a necklace, the huge discovery I mentioned earlier, she found. It is here that the villain of the movie arrives.

Dr. Ameila Von Butch is a grave robbing, tomb raiding, treasure hunter. She is visually based on Lara Croft but comes off as the biggest bitch ever. I hated her character from the onset. She takes over the dig, thanks to her mercenary flunkies, and sets about plundering the Sphinx. She is warned about the curse but disregards it.

The gang wants to enter the Sphinx to solve the mystery of the curse but Velma tells them it’s too dangerous. She eventually relents and the gang, with Omar, head into the Sphinx. It’s not long before Prince Omar gets separated from the group. When he is found he has, somehow, been turned into a statue.

It is decided that it would be too dangerous to split up so the gang plans to stick together, a first for them. That lasts only a few moments.  A trap is accidentally set off and the gang gets split up. Scooby and Shaggy end up on their own, while the rest of the gang searches for them.

Fred, Daphne, Velma and Dr. Von Butch’s group are attacked by Mummies.  They are able to evade them but Velma ends up alone. She drops her glasses, you would think at this point she would have invested in a glasses chain, and is attacked.  Like Omar she is turned into a statue.

Fred and Daphne find her and are devastated.  But being professionals they remember to take Omar’s notebook and the necklace.  They then return to the task of stopping Dr. Von Butch, with the hope of finding a cure for Velma.

Scooby and Shaggy, who fell into the trap earlier, end up at a lost city where Scooby is mistaken for a pharaoh named Ascoobis and Shaggy his servant. 

Back in the Sphinx Fred and Daphne run into Rock Rivers, who is now a suspect.  They soon catch up with Dr. Von Butch and the entire group is attacked by Cleopatra. They escape, except for Rock who is turned into a statue, and make it out of the Sphinx and into a nearby town.

As Fred and Daphne are walking through a bazaar they are attacked by Dr. Von Butch and the necklace is stolen.  Von Butch used sleeping powder on the two rendering them unconscious. They are later awoken by Amahl. He tells Fred and Daphne that he has sent his pet hawk, Horus, out to search for Scooby and Shaggy. Horus returns with Scooby’s collar, Scooby lost it before finding the lost city, and leads them to where he found it.

In the lost city Scooby and Shaggy soon find themselves in danger from the previous leader Hotep (voiced by Ron Perlman). Hotep sets a giant scorpion on the two. A classic and very entertaining chase scene occurs.  Scooby and Shaggy are able to defeat the Scorpion which turns out to be a robot.

Fred, Daphne and Amahl arrive and reveal that Hotep is actually a famed civil engineer (The lost city is actually occupied by people who gave up their normal modern lives for something different.) who illegally damned the Nile River.  Which is why the town from the beginning of the movie was in the middle of a drought.

With Hotep in custody the gang returns to the subject of Velma. Daphne gives Scooby his collar and realizes the necklace is gone.  It’s time for a plan.

Back at the Sphinx Dr. Von Butch and her group are captured by Cleopatra. I need to take a moment here to talk about the action scenes in this movie, especially the ones involving Von Butch and her crew. They are great, the action is smooth and fast paced. These scenes are more hard hitting then your usual Scooby fare. It’s a nice change of pace, actually this whole movie is like that. 

The gang leads an army formed from citizens of the lost city into the sphinx. They clash with the mummies in a large scale battle.  During the chaos Von Butch, who is now on her own, sneaks off to raid the treasure.  She sets off a trap that floods the room with the water from the Nile. This causes the dam, the one Hotep created, to be destroyed and restores the Nile. The treasure is carried by the water and is sent out to the people of Egypt, as Cleopatra had wanted. Ahmal captures Dr. Von Butch and all is right with the world.

Except, we don’t know who was behind the curse and the mummies. Well that’s one of the best things about this movie. The reveal is so great.

The ‘bad guy’ is actually Prince Omar and Velma! That’s right this is a Scooby movie where one of the gang is under the mask.

Omar and Velma knew that their discovery would bring people like Von Butch to the dig. So the decided to protect their find by faking the curse. This is another one of those Scooby movies where the ‘bad guy’ isn’t actually bad. But unlike “Scooby Doo! and the Loch Ness Monster” the ‘bad guy’ isn’t stupid.

So that’s the plot, in a more in depth recap then I like to do, and it is a doozy, This is a very smart, for Scooby-Doo, Scooby movie. There are a lot of moving parts to keep track of.  This is one of the few times when you may not be sure who the culprit is. I rank this one in the top 5 Scooby Movies. 

The animation., as I mentioned, is top notch. The voice acting (Ron Perlman, Christine Baranski, Jeremy Piven) is great, as always. And the story is fun. This is one to watch.

8 out of 10

After trying something new you would expect the Scooby franchise to take it easy with the next movie and play it safe. That isn’t exactly what they did. “Scooby-Doo! Pirates Ahoy!” is not quite run of the mill. It’s not breaking any molds but it does have a few unique bits to it.

We open with the gang on the way to a cruise ship to meet Fred’s parents Skip (Tim Conway)  and Peggy (Edie McClurg).  This is the first time any of the gang’s families have been shown in these movies.  It’s Fred’s birthday and his parents have invited the entire gang on the cruise.

The gang notices that there is something strange with the cruise almost immediately, for starters it‘s headed to the Bermuda Triangle never a good sign.  It turns out this a Mystery cruise and the gang proceeds to solve each of these, in very quick succession. This does not please the other guests or Sunny St. Cloud the cruise Director and Captain Crothers (voiced by Kathy Najimy and Arsenio Hall respectively).

In the prologue of the film we see a ship, on a scientific mission, get attacked by Ghost Pirates. The main scientist on board, Rupert Garcia, manages to escape. He is found by the cruise ship and begins to tell his story. None of the passengers, the gang included, believe him. 

Our last main character arrives in the guise of Biff Wellington (Ron Perlman gifting us with his voice again), a Richard Branson analogue. Soon after Biff’s arrival, during a performance by the hypnotist Mr. Mysterio, the Ghost Pirates attack. 

So what makes this movie different? Well for starters the gang are actually meddling kids in it. They ruin the cruise for everybody by, well, meddling. Even when they know that the mysteries aren’t real they can’t help but poke their noses into them. This leads to the rest of the guests and the crew hating them.

When the gang actually gets themselves under control they refuse to believe Garcia and in doing so turn their backs on an actual mystery. I don’t want to make this seem more dramatic then it is, this is played for laughs, but it’s not something you see very often.

Then you have Fred’s parents. As I said you don’t see the gang’s families very often if at all. So that is a nice change.  This also allows us to see what the parents of a kid who spends his entire life in a van going from spooky castles to haunted amusement parks are like.  They are very nice by the way.

Then we have the ending.

The pirates are lead by Captain Skunkbeard and his first mate Wally. Skunkbeard is revealed to be Biff and Wally is Mr. Mysterio. It turns out that they were after a meteor. Mysterio had convinced Biff that he was the reincarnation of Skunkbeard and the meteor would allow him to travel back in time. That was a lie. The meteor is actually a giant hunk of gold that Mysterio wanted for himself. As for the rest of the crew, they were just victims of Mysterio’s hypnosis.

                 

              
             
That leads to scenes were a female Ghost Pirate (I don’t know why but have to capitalize “Ghost” and “Pirate”) named Sea Salt Sally repeatedly tries to kill Fred’s dad. She turns out to be Fred’s mom. I sense some underlining tension in that relationship.

After Biff and Mysterio are caught a huge storm hits the ship. The meteor is returned to the triangle in the belief it will calm the storm. And it works! So there might have been something supernatural happening in Triangle after all.

While not as good as the previous movie this is an interesting one.  The animation was very good and the voice acting was great, although it’s around this move that you can really hear the age in Casey Kasem’s voice.  The rest of the cast is great though. What other movie can you watch that has Ron Perlman, Tim Conway, Kathy Najimy, and Freddy Rodriguez?  The only reason I rate this one lower than “Where’s my Mummy?” is that it’s more formulaic. But that isn’t a bad thing. The formula is what makes it Scooby-Doo.

7 out of 10

That’s it for today. See you next time with five more movies.