Greetings Ladies and Gents! It is I, The Shaman of Animation and welcome back to Scooby-Doo Month. Scooby-Doo '02 was a big hit for the box office, so naturally, a sequel was guaranteed. With Raja Gosnell returning as director, Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed was released in theaters in 2004. How does it fair compared to its predecessor? Let's dive into the film and find out!
Mystery Inc. is attending the opening of a new museum based on their past adventures. During this celebration, the gang is attacked by a mysterious masked man with a reanimated Pterodactyl ghost, resulting in the stealing of costumes from the museum. As it turned out this masked stranger is using the costumes to reanimate ghosts; and now the gang must stop this crew while worrying about their decline in popularity in Coolsville.
Right off the bat, Monsters Unleashed is a much more family friendly film than the previous Scooby movie. It's not trying to poke fun at the series or try to parody it but to earnestly recreate the original show for an hour & a half long movie; and James Gunn, (Yes THAT James Gunn) who wrote the film, does show to have a respect or at the very least knowledge of the franchise as in the first scene of the film, he makes a deep cut that I had to make up to see if he was making something up for the movie. The sets look cool and seeing the villains like Miner 49er and the Black Knight in live action was pretty cool.
Another plus for the film is that it handles its subplots better than its predecessor. The first movie introduces subplots that isn't followed through well whereas here in the sequel, they manage to keep the plates spinning on the subplots even if some of them are ones I wasn't a fan of such as Velma's romantic subplot with Seth Green.
Speaking of subplots, the funniest bits of the film stem from Shaggy and Scooby (who continue to be the best bits of these movies) who are out to prove that they aren't just screw ups and are legit detectives. I can't mention enough how great Matthew Lillard is as Shaggy with the jokes he has and his banter with Scooby.
But as fun as the Shaggy Plotline is and how great the places the gang travel to looks, the main story of the movie is a little too complicated for its own good. Now it makes sense why you would have many different red herrings and juggle different plot lines because this is an hour and a half movie and having a straightforward mystery might not work, but when it comes time to tie all those plot lines together and reveal the truth, the reveal is very unsatisfactory.
When it comes to providing a more faithful Scooby experience, Monsters Unleashed is a much better film over the first one. Unlike its first movie, it knows what it wants to do and because of that it provides much stronger material that turns in a very decent film.
Oddly enough though, if you were to ask me which film I preferred, I'd say the first one. Perhaps the novelty of it being the first live action Scooby film and just how bizarre it is when it comes to tone and what it wants to be, along with all its early 2000isms makes it such an experience. Because the sequel doesn't really try to be a parody, some people may not enjoy it as much.
But there goes the my thoughts on the two Scooby-Doo Live action films. As I said in the review of the first film, are these good films? Perhaps not, but I still love them, their casts, and just the overall goofiness of them, and for what they've contributed to the franchise (AKA Matthew Lillard) they'll always have their place.
But that's all for now folks. Tune in next week as we go from the big screen to the small screen as we look at Scooby-Doo! The Mystery Begins. Until then folks, I'm The Shaman of Animation wondering what the hell happened to Ruben Studdard?
Seriously, I'm pretty sure he vanished from the face of the Earth after this film
Take Care...
No comments:
Post a Comment