Yes, Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed may be better than its predecessor, but that’s like saying leukemia is better than cancer. It’s still wretched, painful viewing.
The whole Mystery Inc. gang is back — Fred (Freddie Prinze Jr.) Daphne (Sarah Michelle Gellar), Velma (Linda Cardellini), Shaggy (Matthew Lillard) and Scooby (millions of dollars worth of CGI). At the film’s open, they’re attending a grand opening of a Coolsville Museum exhibit of monster costumes of villains they’ve unmasked in the past. Then a bad guy steals the costumes and makes real monsters out of them. Then the real monsters attack the city. Then the Mystery Inc. gang stops them. And then tubby American Idol winner Ruben Studdard shows up to sing an Earth, Wind & Fire song while the cast does an embarrassingly choreographed, career-killing dance number.
Oh, you can add Seth Green as a museum curator, Alicia Silverstone as a nosy reporter and Peter Boyle as a senile old man, but you’re not fooling me: This is the same movie. Granted, there are two big fart gags rather than just one this time around, but still, it’s the same crap all over again: zero story, zero laughs and all special effects. Lord, why did I have kids?
The only thing that makes this marginally cooler — and you should read “marginally” as if it were bold, underlined and in red — is that the monsters are the same from the Hanna-Barbera cartoon series, so there’s a slight kick of nostalgia. It wears off pretty quickly, however, making way for that migraine. —Rod Lott
Why do you hate yourself so much?
I lose a bet with my Wife and had to take my kids to this film when It was in the Theater. I like the appearances of the TV show monsters and costumes. Not the worst movie I ever took my kids to.