SCOOBY-DOO! AND THE LEGEND OF THE PHANTOSAUR (2011)
(Animation, Adventure, Comedy) [G]
This movie was not given a rating so I just threw a G on it. There are some creatures in here, but no cursing, nudity, or any of that jazz.
In this one Shaggy is mystery-solving with the gang but ends up trapped with seemingly 100 haunts and gets so scared he’s practically paralyzed. Fred, Velma, Scooby, and Daphne take him on a retreat where of course they encounter one of the biggest mysteries they’ve encountered (big as in size). Enter the Phantosaur, a ghost dinosaur bent on ridding the area of tourists. Can Shaggy regain his confidence and help the rest of the gang solve the mystery before it’s too late?
First off, I think I have said this before but my favorite voice talents for Scooby-Doo anything involve Mindy Cohn as Velma, Frank Welker as Fred and Scooby, Grey Griffin as Daphne, and Matthew Lillard as Shaggy. I am actually purposely choosing to review direct-to-video Scooby-Doo movies based on the moving having this cast first.
Story-wise this isn’t WB’s best outing with Scooby and the gang, but I do love the idea of having a dinosaur phantom, and execution wise this thing has some pretty great animation throughout. One interesting aspect was what they decided to do with Shaggy kind of giving him an alter-ego in this movie. I don’t want to go too much into how this is accomplished, but it was cool to see two vastly different sides to Shaggy that we haven’t really seen in other films. Shaggy has always been a bit afraid, but always willing. One side of Shaggy in this movie isn’t willing at all and is more scared than we have ever seen him. We also see a side of Shaggy that ended up getting dubbed “Ultra-Instinct Shaggy” and there are some crazy YouTube videos of him fighting anime characters and even Thanos from the MCU.
This is the second Scooby-Doo direct-to-video movie I have seen recently where the mystery isn’t over the first time we think it’s over. It’s also the 16th direct-to-video Scooby-Doo movie. I guess the twist is sort of obvious but it’s still very fun. Dialog-wise this is a fairly strong outing but isn’t as well done as some of the other direct-to-video movies.
From a critical standpoint, I have to say the thing that bugged me the most about this movie wasn’t the movie itself, it was the BLU-RAY cover. I can’t stand the art on this thing. It’s so bad, I will be making my own, printing it, and replacing the sleeve. I get that these are family-friendly movies, but the art should always reflect what is going on in the actual movie itself art-wise when it’s an animated flick. The cover on this thing makes it seems like we are buying full cheese from Nick Jr.
For me, this thing gets a 5 out of 7. Not on par with SCOOBY-DOO! CAMP SCARE but still quite a bit of fun and we do get some interesting characterizations, at least I haven’t seen before.
GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF WARNER BROS ANIMATION AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY.
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