Scoob! (PG)

As a boy, lonely misfit Shaggy encounters a thieving mutt on Venice Beach and adopts the stray, christening his new best friend Scooby-Doo - middle name Doobie. Boy and dog become inseparable and they eagerly join a crime-solving gang of fellow students comprising Fred Jones, Daphne Blake and Velma Dinkley. The Mystery, Inc. gang, as they become known, hope to expand and Simon Cowell offers investment capital on the proviso that the business jettisons "weakest links" Shaggy and Scooby-Doo.

LondonNet Film Review
Scoob! (PG)

As a boy, lonely misfit Shaggy (voiced by Will Forte) encounters a thieving mutt on Venice Beach and adopts the stray, christening his new best friend Scooby-Doo (Frank Welker) – middle name Doobie. Boy and dog become inseparable and they eagerly join a crime-solving gang of fellow students comprising Fred Jones (Zac Efron), Daphne Blake (Amanda Seyfried) and Velma Dinkley (Gina Rodriguez)…

The Mystery, Inc. gang, as they become known, hope to expand and Simon Cowell (himself) offers investment capital on the proviso that the business jettisons “weakest links” Shaggy and Scooby-Doo. The best friends commiserate at a 10-pin bowling alley where they are targeted by mechanised minions engineered by archvillain Dick Dastardly (Jason Isaacs). Thankfully, Shaggy’s superhero idol Blue Falcon (Mark Wahlberg) and his canine companion Dynomutt the Dog Wonder (Ken Jeong) save the day and unearth a plot linking Alexander The Great and multi-headed hell hound Cerberus.

Scoob! is a briskly orchestrated origin story that repeatedly references the Hanna-Barbera TV series, including a revamp of the opening title sequence and nods to animated stable mates Captain Caveman and Hong Kong Phooey. A script credited to four writers is saturated with pop culture references, some of which merit a giggle like when Dick Dastardly refers to blond dreamboat Fred as “Poor man’s Hemsworth” and he blushingly replies, “Chris or Liam?”

Catchphrases are merrily tossed into the mix – “Jeepers!”, “Jinkies!”, “Zoinks!” – to stoke nostalgia but this only serves to remind us how much fun the original small screen incarnation was compared to this slick and energetic cover version.

– Jo Planter