Scooby-Doo! Frankencreepy

I've always been a fan of Scooby-Doo. I know a lot of people prefer when the series goes dark, meta or more mature (like Zombie Island or Mystery Inc), but I always preferred the more light-hearted adventures in colorful locations, and this film hits those hit all the high points for me.

First of all, the editing and humor in this film hit me by surprise. A ton of blink-and-you'll miss it moments, and some of the gags had me in stitches. I love how the film kept building on the gags and jokes without making them stale (something future films picked up on, but didn't do as much as this one). The film also had a ton of lightning fast edit scenes which I enjoyed but felt they were a bit out of place. Overall, the film is a lot more gag-based than some Scooby-Doo films but still manages to have a fairly foreboding atmosphere. The animation was also really cool. It felt a bit cheap in places, using fairly low-quality CGI for backgrounds, but it set the moon and looked really good all-throughout. A ton better than the lackluster looking 2000s films. I didn't like the animation as good as the anime-styled 90s films, but it's different and still really nice. What also took me by surprise was the sheer villainy of the bad guys. Scooby-Doo villains have rarely ever been as bloodthirsty as these guys, who attempted to straight up murder Mystery Inc in various ways. It was kind of cool in a twisted way. The villains didn't just feel like a mystery for the gang to solve, but legitimate threats that the gang needed to put to justice. Overall, the gang felt a lot more heroic in this film, since they weren't just solving a mystery but liberating a small town from a bunch of maniacs who took over. The characterization of the characters were also a real treat. The film carried the fairly new tradition of making Fred into more of a technically-minded dork (like Velma but more engineering than science) with a very animated personality. This has its strengths and weaknesses of course. On one hand, it makes Freddy a lot more interesting of a character with his own inner-personal demons to overthrow in his character arc, but it also takes away some of the credibility he had as a leader. Daphne instead becomes more of the straight-man type figure this time around. Though still vain and fashion-centric, she's much more down-to-earth than anyone else in Mystery Inc. Everyone else is more-or-less how you'd expect, which is always a treat. To sum things up, this film was an utter treat. I loved the beginning, middle and end of it. It might even be my favorite Scooby-Doo movie yet.