Scooby-Doo! Curse of the Lake Monster (2010)

"I may have no choice but to shut this place down and go back to my life as an international playboy."
-Uncle Thorny



While working on a case, Mystery Inc. accidentally burns down a barn.  To pay for the damage, the gang all gets jobs at a country club for the summer.  However, their employment is quickly in jeopardy as a Lake Monster begins attacking the club.  It's up to Mystery Inc. to solve the case or the country club will be going down the drain.


What Works:

Curse of the Lake Monster takes all of my complaints from the first movie and fixes them.  The CGI, while still not fantastic, is an improvement.  Plus the movie doesn't have as many special effects as the first, which is the right way to go if you can't have good CGI.

The previous movie's villain had a really lackluster design, but this time we get a frog-monster.  It's goofy looking, but it's at least creative.  I laughed every time it came on screen.

Fred (Robbie Amell) still has brown hair, but they at least address the blonde hair this time around.  We get a scene where Fred and Daphne (Kate Melton) have to disguise themselves to hide from the monster and Fred puts on a blonde wig and remarks that he looks good in it.  I don't know why that wasn't in the first movie, but I'm glad they finally addressed it.

Like the previous film, this movie does a good job of capturing the tone of the series.  Curse of the Lake Monster actually goes further than the last film in this regard.  The film is much more cartoony and over-the-top, complete with random musical numbers.  And I was totally okay with it.


What Sucks:

Curse of the Lake Monster tries to create conflict among the gang, which makes sense.  Strife among our heroes should be interesting.  The problem is both Fred and Scooby (Frank Welker) come off as extremely unlikable.  Fred is a complete hypocrite and Scooby is very selfish.  I don't like seeing these characters like this.  If we're going to go this route, at least add some more nuance to the characters to make their behavior more understandable.  The way it is now just sucks.

Finally, the internal conflict in Mystery Inc. comes from Fred and Daphne not being on the same page about their relationship and Shaggy (Nick Palatas) developing a crush on Velma (Hayley Kiyoko), which makes Scooby jealous.  Fine, but the film misses a much more interesting source of conflict.  The entire movie, Velma is set up as the primary suspect for the audience, but the rest of the gang doesn't notice the clues.  It would be much more interesting for the gang to suspect Velma of being behind the Lake Monster.  Paranoia that one of their own is the villain is far more interesting than the relationship drama we get stuck with.


Verdict:

Curse of the Lake Monster improves on all of the issues I had with its predecessor, but the way the film creates conflict makes some of the characters needlessly unlikable.  It's still a fun movie though and does a great job of capturing the spirit of the series.

 7/10: Good   

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