Scoob!' isn't much fun, and neither are those meddling kids
(CNN) First, a confession: There are those of us who have never really been fans of Scooby-Doo, or for that matter, those meddling kids. Still, the animated dog and his crime-solving crew have been around for 50 years, which explains why there's a movie called "Scoob!," one so inconsequential and flat it doesn't lose much by premiering on a TV screen.
"Scoob!" had been destined for theaters before coronavirus intervened. As studios try to make the best of a bad situation and feed the appetite for new content, it follows "Trollq World Tour" -- which found a receptive audience -- in the category of family fare streaming into homes, offering a diversion for parents seeking to distract kids for 90-ish minutes, especially if they can excuse themselves and go watch something else.
Nostalgia aside, the biggest challenge for this animated movie -- lacking the novelty of the live-action versions produced in the early part of this century -- is layering a feature-length plot over the bones of a formulaic Saturday-morning cartoon.
The film at least mostly meets the challenge on that level, casting Shaggy (voiced by Will Forte) and Scooby (Frank Welker) at the center of a threat to the entire world, as they're whisked off by a superhero known as the Blue Falcon (Mark Wahlberg) on a big, messy adventure. There's also a telegraphed message about the importance of friendship, testing the seemingly unshakeable bond between the central duo.
Directed by Tony Cervone, "Scoob!" tries to adopt a contemporary feel, with a cameo by Simon Cowell and references to such things as Netflix and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg -- the latter chosen by the Scooby gang's Thelma (Gina Rodriguez) as her Halloween costume.
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