My Movie Review on Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island-OUTDATED
Aloha, my pals.
This is your friendly film, TV show, and episode reporter here with another review.
Today, for my 9th analysis on an installment of the Scooby-Doo franchise, I'm gonna give you my take of "Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island".
Here's the summary of it:
After a one year hiatus from mystery solving, Scooby-Doo and his human pals, Shaggy, Fred, Daphne, and Velma reunite to investigate MoonScar Island, which is said to be haunted by the ghost of Morgan MoonScar, the pirate.
Wanna know the biggest twist with this mystery?
THE MONSTERS ARE REAL!!!
Before I get into what I think of this film, I'd like to be honest about something:
I primarily steered clear of this movie due to thinking that it would be terrible, and because it looked too scary for my taste. Especially after seeing a trailer that pretty much seemed to give the whole rundown of it all.
However, I found myself interested in giving this movie a shot based on its popularity and the positive comments I've been reading. So, when I discovered its availability on Netflix, I couldn't resist giving it a shot.
I'm happy to say that it isn't as terrible as I expected. But, it isn't what I'd like to call the best Scooby-Doo installment either.
Among the things I enjoyed about this movie was its animation. I loved how the animators were obviously making great use of their budget and were really extending themselves, giving the film an impressive look for a direct-to-video release. I especially enjoyed the animation used with the settings, and the light that would cast itself down to bring the zombies to life.
The music composed by Steve Bramson was another one of the film's most compelling elements. It truly amazed me how Bramson was able to make his music so cinematic for a direct-to-video movie, and the song "It's Terror Time Again" was enjoyable enough to upload to your Music App.
Despite this, though, there were things about the film I was far from fond of.
For instance, I found myself having mixed opinions on the voice acting and characters.
I will definitely say that I enjoyed the developments of Fred, Daphne, and Velma throughout this film, and Shaggy and Scooby really put a smile on my face. For his first reprisal of Fred from the classic installments of the franchise, Frank Welker did a phenomenal job at proving that he owns the role. Plus, the film's supporting players sounded like they were having a great time portraying their characters.
But, I wasn't exactly fond of the performances of Scott Innes, Billy West, Mary Kay Bergman, and B.J. Ward as Scooby, Shaggy, Daphne, and Velma in this film. On one hand, I grew up with Bergman's work as Daphne in "Scooby-Doo and the Alien Invaders" and Innes's and Ward's work in that film and "Scooby-Doo and the Cyber Chase", so I think it must've had something to do with the voice direction.
Frankly, I absolutely loathed Billy West's portrayal of Shaggy. I thought that he certainly tried his best, but every time I heard Shaggy's voice I couldn't help but note that he had this extremely annoying squeak that was far from tolerable, which was enough to affect his comedic-timings too.
Snakebite Scruggs turned out to be a pointless character in the long run, if I may say. He was interesting, and Mark Hamill did a great job portraying him. But, when it turned out that he had little to do with the overall mystery, it became apparent his only purpose was to curse the heavens about tourists every time Scooby and Shaggy got in his way.
Finally, the direction by Jim Stenstrum, the screenplay by Glenn Leopold, and the story by Leopold and Davis Doi, weren't exactly what I'd call a delicious Scooby snack.
As a comedy, the film seemed to offer little in the way of humor. Whatever jokes that the film even had seemed to fall flat, and they lacked the Hanna-Barbera touch. The movie did have a mystery that helped keep things interesting, but at the end of the day...making the monsters real seemed to translate the film into a horror movie more than a mystery, taking away all the fun and making it less than family-friendly. It didn't help that it had a rather dark and intense premise that would give children nightmares.
In the end, "Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island" isn't what I believe to be the greatest Scooby-Doo film ever made. Everything appeared to be in place, and the team behind it was obviously quite ambitious and willing to take risks. But yet, the purpose and meaning behind the film seemed to be lost, and it did little to capture the spirit of the franchise.
So, I rate "Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island" 3 1/2 out of 5 stars. It's a decent film, but not a great one.
