Scooby-Doo! Mask of the Blue Falcon (2012)
*** (out of 4)
Entertaining feature has the gang traveling to a comic convention so that Scooby and Shaggy can meet the original actor who played the Blue Falcon. Soon Mr. Hyde shows up and starts destroying everything in sight and clues make one think that it's the original actor who is upset over Hollywood's new movie, which was made without him. SCOOBY-DOO! MASK OF THE BLUE FALCON is without question one of the more entertaining Scooby movies of recent years for a number of reasons. The biggest is that there are a lot of winks to earlier cartoons and not just Blue Falcon but there are also brief cameos from other famous characters. Most of them are in the form of fans dressing as the characters but these here are still a lot of fun and especially an appearance by Fred Flintstone. We even get a brief shot of Captain Caveman. Another reason this film works so well is that the story itself is actually pretty good. I thought the idea of an actor being upset that he's getting pushed aside by an update film was quite interesting and made for a fun adventure. Even the mystery itself was handled pretty well. The villain Mr. Hyde was another plus as he was great fun to root against. The vocal performances were all extremely good this time around with Matthew Lillard (Shaggy) and Frank Welker (Scooby, Fred) really standing out. The animation was also very good throughout. Fans of the old TV show or the new one will certainly enjoy this film as it has a good story, great characters and goes by at a very fast pace.
