Ten years ago (in the movie), a young boy named Norville Rogers (a.k.a., Shaggy) walks down Los Angeles. Desperate for a friend, he meets a talking-puppy, who calls himself Scooby. A cop almost penalizes Shaggy for taking a stray dog with him… until Shaggy “reveals” Scooby’s middle name. The officer lets him go.

On Halloween night, shortly after, Shaggy goes trick-or-treating with Scooby – only to face bullies that take his candy and throw it into a haunted house. Three other children, Fred, Daphne, and Velma, help Shaggy retrieve his candy back. However, it is inside a haunted house. Of course, trouble happens, but the kids achieve their goals. 

The theme song then occurs, and the same shots (in CGI) happen, but change as the time passes. 

The gang sits in a restaurant together and they meet Simon Cowell. Excited, Scooby and Shaggy play a song and sing out of tune, as a way to “impress” Simon Cowell, because he used to be the main judge on American Idol.

Unfortunately, he says remarks about Shaggy and Scooby. He even claims that friendship won’t save the day, which hurts them.

Later, Scooby and Shaggy go to a bowling alley – when the “balls” and “bowling pins” turn out to be robotic monsters. 

The two dress as waiters and try to serve the robots food. They changed their appearances to look cute, like babies. But once one of the robots tried to order calamari, and Shaggy shouted, “Oh, no! We’re out of calamari!”, they return to their demonic selves, and scare away Shaggy and Scooby.

After the two escape, Scooby and Shaggy are abducted into a jet, where they meet a leader named Dee Dee, a super guy called Blue Falcon, and his dog sidekick, Dynomutt. 

But a man, named Dastardly, who owns the shape-shifting robots that have disguised themselves as bowling balls and pins, is out to hunt Scooby and Shaggy. They encounter each other in an abandoned amusement park. Blue Falcon and Dynomutt rescue them – but Dastardly kidnaps Scooby.

Meanwhile, Fred, Velma, and Daphne search for Shaggy and Scooby. They speed on the road but are pulled over by an “attractive policewoman” – who turns out to be Dastardly. He locks them inside his ship until one of his robots frees them. Dee Dee informs them about a skull in Messick Mountain and Dastardly’s plan to unlock the underworld, since his dog was trapped there years ago, and could never return.

They also discover that Scooby is the last descendant of Alexander the Great’s dog. So, only he can unlock the gates to the underworld. This scares the mystery gang.

Despite the mixed reviews, as well as never being a die-hard Scooby Doo fan, I actually enjoyed this film and laughed a lot throughout it.

A lot of the moments pleased me, especially when Blue Falcon broke the fourth-wall. Shaggy wanted to drop some “f-bombs” and Blue Falcon stopped him, reminding him to keep everything PG-rated. LOL. However, Shaggy had meant falcon bombs, which is what Blue Falcon used to defeat villains.

Other great moments include the cavewoman cheerleaders, who cheered when Captain Caveman challenged Scooby to a tournament in a prehistoric stadium, and when the lady behind the front desk at the bowling alley just casually said, “No running,” as Scooby and Shaggy dashed away from the robots, disguised as bowling balls. 

Speaking of which – the woman who worked at the bowling alley knew everything that went on, as she revealed Fred, Daphne, and Velma, later. Yet, she didn’t seem to care – not to mention that she was using her phone and putting her feet up on the desk.

Every time I think about that scene, my internal response is, Will somebody report her to her manager? Maybe she should be fired.

Overall, the story had amazing elements, such as more unexpected twists and turns, little moments becoming important later (I won’t specify what), the importance of friendship and teamwork, as well as some emotional scenes, both happy and sad.

That being said, the film did have some displeasing aspects, besides the [overdone] CG animation. Speaking of which, the quality of the animation felt primitive for 2020. The textures appeared too smooth and simplistic, which made it look amateurish. 

Another flaw was changing the main time setting to 2020, when Scooby Doo originally came out in the late 1960s. I understand that times change, and the creators probably wanted to make it relatable to today’s audiences so that it wouldn’t feel outdated. Yet, it kind of strays away from the premise and could also mislead certain people, especially younger ones.

However, several Scooby Doo shows and adaptations exist, aside from the original Hanna-Barbera show, Scooby Doo, Where Are You?. Excluding that one, there are TV shows, like A Pup named Scooby Doo (where Scooby and the gang are little), What’s New, Scooby Doo?, which came out in the 2000’s decade, live-action films, and a whole franchise of Scooby Doo products and more.

All in all, I enjoyed this movie, and rate it 4.5 out of 5 stars.