Scooby-Doo! The Mystery Begins (2009) Review

"Who in their right mind would bring bears to the beach?!"

-Shaggy Rogers

When a group of ghosts begin terrorizing Coolsville Academy, a group of four teenagers and a dog are blamed for it.  The teenagers, who discover they all love mysteries, decide to work together to clear their names and find out who is really responsible for the spooky situation.

What Works:

The Mystery Begins actually does a really good job of capturing the tone of the series.  Its goofy, cartoony fun, plain and simple.  Does that material translate super well to live action?  No, but I give them points for committing to the goofy tone anyway.

The cast also does a solid job.  Nick Palatas plays Shaggy and, while he's no Matthew Lillard, he still does a good job of bringing this goofball to life.  He's the best of the group, but I liked everyone in their respective roles.

At times, the movie reminded me of The Breakfast Club.  Each member of the gang is from a different clique.  Shaggy is an outcast, Velma (Hayley Kiyoko) is a nerd, Daphne (Kate Melton) is a theater kid, and Fred (Robbie Amell) is a jock.  They all end up in a library detention together and find common ground and become friends.  At the end of the movie, we have a moment where they all go their own ways, kinda like with The Breakfast Club, although they come back together to keep solving mysteries.  I think this was a good route to take these characters down.  Having them come from different groups is more interesting than having them all be friends from the start.

We also get a good reason for why Shaggy and Scooby (Frank Welker) are willing to go on so many mysteries.  The two of them are so afraid of everything, I always wondered why they kept up with this.  It's that they have finally found a group of people that accept them.  They love their friends so much, they are willing to risk being terrified to keep it going and I like that development for these two.

Finally, the movie ends with a live-action version of the opening sequence from the TV show.  I loved this and it was probably my favorite part of the movie.  We gets crash zooms on monsters, Fred being pulled through a secret passageway, and the gang exploring haunted mansions.  I loved seeing a live-action version of this and it's a great way to end the film.

What Sucks:

The biggest problem with the movie is the CGI.  Scooby and the ghosts look awful.  It's actually pretty embarrassing for 2009.  I know this is a TV movie, but still.  It's really bad.

One thing I love about Scooby-Doo is all the cool monster designs.  Our main villain does not get a cool design.  It's just a guy in a black robe with a nondescript mask.  That's it.  I expected something a little more flashy for the gang's first case.

There's a weird subplot where it turns out Velma has a crush on Fred.  It doesn't really go anywhere and I'm not sure why it's in the film.  I never got that vibe that Velma had a crush on Fred, so I don't know why it's here, especially when they never do anything with that plot point.

Finally, for some reason, Fred has brown hair in this film, not blonde.  Everyone else looks just like the original designs of the character, but not Fred.  There is an easy write-around.  Just throw in a line saying "Fred, you should dye your hair blonde," or something like that.  Or just dye his hair.  It's weird that they don't address it or do something about it.  It seems lazy on the filmmakers part.

Verdict:

Scooby-Doo! The Mystery Begins is a made for TV, live-action, Scooby-Doo movie and it feels like it.  The tone and the cast are solid, but the movie is cheap and the effects are terrible.  It's fine, but ultimately nothing special.

 6/10: Okay