Sarah Michelle Gellar

Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed

By Alexa Moses

April 1, 2004

Written by James Gunn, William Hanna and Joseph Barbera

Directed by Raja Gosnell

Cinemas everywhere

Who, exactly, is the Scooby-Doo audience? I would guess potheads, thirtysomethings reliving their childhood, and children. If I’m right, there’s a lot of these types out there: Scooby-Doo 2 topped the box office in in the US last week, and was the fifth-biggest opening ever for March in the US. But art and commerce need not go hand in hand. And they certainly don’t with the Scooby-Doo films. The trick with these films is that they never aim to be anything but silly pap, and they certainly achieve their objective. This sequel isn’t even a decent work of art, but like Shaggy, it’s brainless and never mean-spirited.

The gang - Mystery Inc - is involved in an exhibition at the Coolsonian Criminology Museum, where the costumes of all the monsters they’ve unmasked are being displayed. At the exhibition opening, the Pterodactyl Ghost comes alive and wreaks havoc, and the other ghosts quickly follow suit and run riot around Coolsville. It’s up to Fred (Freddie Prinze jnr), Daphne (Sarah Michelle Gellar), Velma (Linda Cardellini), Shaggy (Matthew Lillard) and Scooby-Doo to work out who let the ghosts out.

Geeky exhibition curator Patrick Wisely (Seth Green) comes under scrutiny, even though Velma has fallen for him, and Alicia Silverstone plays a malicious television reporter who is out to smear the gang’s reputation.

The plot of this sequel has been complicated for no apparent reason. Hanna Barbera’s villains are weak, and the sequel is spiked with the kind of ghastly sentimental moments the first film avoided. Too many times, one character turns to another and says "You know what?" and then launches into an flimsy emotional spiel about what they’d learnt in the proceeding five minutes.

Around such annoying emotional interludes, the chases are cute, the Skelemen and 10,000 Volt Ghost are fun, and the expertly animated Scooby-Doo is a pleasure to watch.

I found myself wishing there was less mystery for Daphne, Fred and Velma to solve, so I could see more of Scooby.

I couldn’t help smiling indulgently as he did a disco dance number wearing a shiny flared jumpsuit, a huge afro wig and a gold neck chain.

The actors have breathed life into the cartoon characters nicely, with Lillard the standout as hammy pothead, Shaggy. Gellar pouts and simpers her way through the film, Cardellini’s Velma is all faux shy glances and a raspy voice, and Prinze jnr didn’t do at all anything as far as I could see except wear the costume. But then, Fred has always been a non-character.

During the final act of Scooby-Doo 2, Shaggy and Scooby eat their way through a giant, slavering monster made of pink fairy floss, which is pretty much how I felt about this film. Fluffy, tolerable at the time, but it dissolved under scrutiny and left me slightly nauseous.