March 26, 2004 | If at first you do succeed – well, maybe you should quit while you’re ahead. Otherwise, you might make a really dumb mistake, or produce a really obnoxious sequel. Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed is only the first follow-up to Scooby-Doo (2002), the improbably enjoyable live-action comedy based on the cult-fave Hanna-Barbera cartoon. But it’s painfully obvious that the law of diminishing returns has already caught up with the budding franchise.
The previous flick impressed both new fans and longtime devotees of the animated series with its spot-on casting of human lead characters, and its seamless commingling of real people and a CGI Great Dane. Unfortunately, Scooby-Doo 2 doesn’t have novelty value going for it. Even more unfortunately, it has nothing else to recommend it.
Director Raja Gosnell and screenwriter James Gunn have returned for the repeat, along with the four leads – Freddie Prinze Jr., Sarah Michelle Gellar, Matthew Lillard and Linda Cardellini – cast as the Mystery, Inc. crime-solving quartet. Better still, visual effects supervisor Peter Crosman is back to animate Scooby-Doo, the large dog with the unique speech impediment (voiced, once again, by Neil Fanning). This time, however, everyone involved has tried to make something bigger, louder and – geez, what were they thinking? – more emotionally involving. And with more jokes about dog flatulence.
Much like the 2002 original, Scooby-Doo 2 is aimed at viewers already familiar with conventions of the TV series. (For the benefit of those who tuned in late: In almost every episode, the young heroes expose an apparent “ghost” as a costume-clad human villain.) Indeed, the sequel attempts to spoof the Scooby-Doo mythos by bringing the four Mystery, Inc. sleuths to a museum display of disguises worn by creepy villains unmasked over the years by “those meddling kids.”
During the exhibit’s opening, however, festivities are interrupted by an Evil Masked Figure (yep, that’s how the baddie is billed) who transforms the inanimate costumes into walking-and-stalking editions of the Black Knight Ghost, the Skelemen, the 10,000 Volt Ghost and similar miscreants. This looks like a job for Mystery, Inc. Before they can save the day, however, each member of the gang must deal with… well, personal issues.
Gosnell and Gunn have a concocted a feel-good message – “Be true to yourself, and be comfortable being yourself!” – that they deliver repeatedly, and tediously, throughout Scooby-Doo 2. Chronic fraidy cats Shaggy (Lillard) and Scooby feel the need to prove themselves as full-fledged detectives, and aren’t happy until they realize their true value as comic relief. (Or something like that.) Image-conscious Daphne (Gellar) worries that she’s just a beautiful cipher – albeit a beautiful cipher who can acrobatically kick a lot of monster butt – while the dashing Fred (Prinze Jr.) is briefly torn by troubling self-doubt. Most alarmingly of all, bespectacled uber-nerd Velma (Cardellini) tries to overcome her newly diagnosed “fear of intimacy” with an extreme make-over, turning herself into a glamorous uber-babe in a bright red catsuit to attract a lovestruck museum curator (Seth Green).
And just in case the audience misses the message-mongering, the filmmakers also have a scene in which a prime suspect, Old Man Wickles (Peter Boyle), admits he pretended to be the Black Knight long ago because he was insecure about his self-worth. No kidding.
When Scooby-Doo 2 isn’t trafficking in absurdly incongruous psycho-babble, it goes to extremes with f/x-filled action-comedy sequences. But the high-tech overkill is more exhausting than impressive, and the movie overall is more frenetic than funny. This overstuffed sequel isn’t entirely charm-free – Cardellini once again glows with foxy-nerdy radiance, Lillard is reliably goofy, Prinze and Gellar are playfully self-satirical – but strenuous effort is apparent in almost every frame.
