Based on the classic seventies cartoon from Hanna-Barbera that spawned a massive franchise and a ton of rip-offs, in this live-action hit movie we meet the Scooby gang on yet another case. After solving it successfully, Freddy, the boneheaded leader (Freddie Prinze Jr.  Summer Catch, I know what you did last summer) takes all the credit causing the group to split. Two years later, they're assembled by a mysterious case from a millionaire named Mandavarious (Rowan Atkinson  Mr. Bean, Rat Race) who owns the popular "Spooky Island" where lots of spring break teens come for a party and beer but leave mindless zombies. Now the gang is on the case including the accident prone damsel in distress Daphne (Sarah Michelle Gellar  Buffy the vampire slayer, Cruel Intentions), the brains of the group Velma (Linda Cardellini  Freaks and Geeks), and the cowardly twosome Scooby and Shaggy (Matthew Lillard  Scream, She's all that). The gang's all here!
    I never liked the cartoons. I found them to be ridiculous, repetitive and dull so it was typical I went into this with very low expectations. But, alas, low expectations are what ultimately saved this movie, helping me to enjoy it a lot more than I thought I would. What I liked about this was, it doesn't take itself seriously. It spoofs the entire series by making the characters more satirical than actual serious individuals. Instantly, we see the characters with rather altered personalities including Velma who was a soft-spoken but brainy character in the cartoons, yet is very bitter and sarcastic in this. She was my favorite character in the entire movie because of her hilarious remarks and mannerisms. Fred is resorted to a vain ego-centric bonehead, and Daphne into a prissy defenseless beauty queen. At the start of the film we see Daphne being carried by a ghost and we hear Velma say: "Shockingly, Daphne got captured by the ghost." That made me break out into laughter because anyone who knows the cartoons know that Daphne is always the one to get caught first and last. A lot of the scenes are actually enjoyable including a great moped chase scene with Shaggy and Scooby, and the climax of the film where the group corrupts the evil lair of the enemy. I enjoyed this because this is more of a pop culture reference than an actual movie with a plot to it. Lo and behold, I like this.

"Let's get jinkie with it." Yes, folks, this is actual dialogue from the movie that is spouted by the "smartest" of the characters, Velma. This is an enjoyable movie but suffers from the usual drawbacks. The characters are poorly cast, including Daphne, who, played by Sarah Michelle Gellar, looks nothing like her animated counterpart, Freddy, played by the atrocious actor Freddie Prinze Jr. has little command or charisma so it's hard to take him seriously at all. Matthew Lillard is good as Shaggy but fails to gives the squeaky voice that Shaggy provides in the cartoons. Scooby is poorly animated and just looks weird and nothing like the original dog. At times he gives these odd expressions which made me furrow my brows alot. The animated scenes in this are often very weird, including the enemies that look like demonic versions of Scooby. The plot is paper thin with its usual prime objective as the gang must solve the crime, but it often gets derailed by these nonsensical scenes including a cringe inducing farting contest sequence between Scooby and Shaggy that went on w-a-a-a-y too long and a scene where their souls are being mixed around and they begin taking on the mannerisms of each other. I found it very disturbing how they admired each other so perversely. At one point, Freddy goes in Daphne's body and the first words that come out of his mouth are "I gotta see myself naked", then he goes into Velma's body and begins looking down her dress into her cleavage! The ending is incredibly predictable that toddlers watching this will guess it without hesitation; I had the surprise enemy down by the first forty minutes of the film.

This is not half as bad a film as everyone said it was. I enjoyed this a lot. Adults might want to leave halfway through but kids will get a real kick out of this.