Scooby Doo! The Mystery Begins
By Jose
What it’s about:
What brings best friends together? For Daphne, Velma, Fred, Shaggy and Shaggy's spunky pup Scooby-Doo, it's a mystery! The live-action Scooby-Doo: The Mystery Begins original movie takes you back to when four teenage sleuths, plus one dog detective, first met.
Review:
So Scooby Doo has about several hundred different shows and movies if not more. Which all range from classic and great to forgettable and just bad. We also seen release of two Hollywood released movies and few years ago that weren’t that bad yet were not necessary to the Scooby Doo franchise. So here comes another live action Scobby movie that gives us a look at where it all began. And you know what, besides the obvious flaws, was really entertaining.
The film is an origin story for Scooby and the Mystery Inc. gang, revealing how they met and the events of their very first case. In Coolsville, Ohio the cast is introduced on the school bus. Shaggy is a nerdy outcast who is frequently picked on by a jock, normally by getting tripped every morning on the bus. Fred is the quarterback of the football team and the jock's friend, but disapproves of him picking on Shaggy. Velma is an outcast geek, and Daphne is in the drama club. At school, Shaggy's trouble is trying to get his locker door open results in him falling in a trashcan and rolling into the Principal's office, though this is clearly not the first time. Principal Deedle suggests that Shaggy try to find some friends and says he should take up a hobby like his, stamp collecting. (which plays into the plot later on in the movie). Meanwhile, a talking Great Dane named Scoobert trying to get adopted at an adoption fair with no luck. At the end of the fair he's crammed into a cage and loaded into the back of a pickup truck. Scoobert falls out and begins to wander through a graveyard, but a strike of lightning resurrects a pair of ghosts. In a blind panic, Scoobert runs off and leaps into Shaggy's house. They instantly become great friends, and Shaggy nicknames the dog "Scooby."
Shaggy attempts to smuggle Scooby to school disguised as a kid; however, when a jock trips Shaggy (again), Scooby bites the jock's leg, which starts a fight that quickly involves Shaggy, Fred, Velma, and Daphne. Both Shaggy and Fred attack the jock to protect Scooby, and Fred unintentionally disturbs Daphne and crushes Velma's science project. All four of them get six weeks of detention when the bus driver, distracted by the commotion, crashes into the school's flagpole, knocking it over and smashing into the windshield of Vice Principal Grimes' new car. As the four are in detention, they discover they share an interest in mystery stories, but all quickly get on each other's nerves. Suddenly, the two ghosts appear. The ghosts chase them into the gym during the pep rally and a third mysterious ghost, the Spectre, appears, telling everyone to leave at once. The principal decides to close the school, but the vice principal deems the incident a prank caused by the gang out of revenge for their detention, and he changes from the charge of detention to suspension. From here on the gang falls into a mystery that they need to solve to clear their names and save the school.
Now as you may have read certain reviews of mine, I tend to not spoil much of the movie I review. I am the type of person that will give you a bit of the beginning to gain some interest and then for you, the reader, to judge if you want to check out the movie or not. So with that I want to get into the actors a bit and Scooby himself. Previously we have gotten Matthew Lillard as an older Shaggy but for Mystery Begins we get a outstanding performance from Nick Palatas as Shaggy. I mean this guy was Shaggy. If you ever pictured what Shaggy would look like and act like in real life look no further then at the performance that Nick gave. And the same goes for Hayley Kiyoko as Velma. I truly have to stop and applause the casting choices for these two roles because they are honestly perfect and I hope if there are any other Scooby Doo movies that they go out of their way and bring these actors back
But that is not to say that Kate Melton as Daphne and Robbie Amell as Fred were bad actors or choices for these roles. No not at all. They were good as well. But Nick and Hayley stole the show. They became the characters. That and Fred had dark hair. Don’t know why they decided on that. Maybe there is a story about how Daphne colored turned him into a bleach blonde at some point in time in the future or whatever. But it was what it was. Scooby Doo himself was computer animated character. You know with a straight to DVD movie the effects are not going to be great but Scooby was decently done and I did enjoy bringing in Frank Welker to voice Scooby.
Final Thoughts:
Yes Scooby Doo the Mystery Begins is a straight to DVD live action movie based on a beloved classic cartoon. So automatically we should hate it. I did not. I enjoyed this movie for what it was. A glimpse into how such a great group of ghost and mystery hunters first came to be and how there friendship began and grew. Yes it has it’s faults but all movies regardless of budget, cast, director, etc all have faults. So with that I leave you with this: if you are a fan of Scooby Doo and the gang give this movie a try. You probably will not be disappointed and maybe enjoy it how I did. Plus here is hoping for another Begins-type Scooby movie with these actors.
Ratings: 3 out of 5
**A bit of an update seems that they are making another movie with all the same people. Scooby Doo! Curse of the Lake Monster is due out later this year. I can't wait.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1618435/
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