Scooby-Doo! Stage Fright

Very good movie. Filled with twists and turns even I didn't look out for. Even adults may enjoy it

My three year old loves Scooby-Doo. All the movies, all the tv shows, cartoons or live action, he loves Scooby-Doo. And this movie is by far his favourite. It has many funny moments for adults and has genuinely enjoyable twists. I pick up more little bits and pieces each time he watches it, there are so many little hints but it isn't as obvious as many of the others. I don't let him watch it in the mornings anymore because I get the songs stuck in my head all day! It really is very good.

The animation is beautiful too and the voice work is awesome. It has heart and a message too just to top everything off.

Jinkies! It's a cartoon adaptation of 'Phantom of the Opera' with a cynical, yet often rather humorous, perspective on talent shows. You sure Simon Cowell wasn't the masked villain? Because he's still at large! Quick! To the Mystery Machine! For what it's worth, this isn't half bad. The classic Scooby-Doo formula is grounded with as much realism as possible, given the boundaries of a cartoon. No fantastical myths or legends. Just a masked caped "phantom" being a complete menace. A phantom menace as it were (you can have that...).

With Daphne finally confirming her undying infatuation for Fred, Velma naturally getting excited over a diamond and Shaggy and Scooby devouring the largest pizza ever created in just mere seconds. Someone living in the sewers for forty years whilst failing to understand mirrors, parodying the famous musical. Accompanied with a cutesy little title cartoon that introduces the voice actors. All harmless shenanigans, but the problem with this extended episode (I just can't class these as films), and the remaining straight-to-DVD features, is the imbalanced story. The mystery of the phantom itself literally only consumes a third of the plot. The other two thirds are filled with cartoonish antics for the sake of filling up the runtime. It loses focus and leaves my mind wandering as I wait for the predictable culprit to be revealed.

Sure the animation, minus the 3D computerised effects, and voice acting were consistently engaging as always. But there's only so much dawdling I can take. Oh, and a talent show ending on a tie? Two acts with the same precise number of votes (we're talking over thirty million here)? Impossibly improbable. But of course, the good ol' sympathy story always wins. What else can I say? It's an unnecessarily long Scooby-Doo episode that kids/fans are sure to love. Harmless as it is forgettable. The metal girl group should've won though. An American punk 'Babymetal'...

Stage Fright was nothing special. It had so much potential but got lost along the way. The voice acting was terrific, the idea was great, and the animation was amazing. And as much as I loved all of that, the story didn't follow through. Each scene didn't feel that exciting like it should have been. Even so, there were some nice parts. I liked how many bad guys they were. It made for an interesting discovery each time. I loved the whole plot line with Fred and Daphne and hoped they would continue it in later movies, but guess what. It doesn't happen. So honestly that whole plot felt pointless to add. If you want to see Daphne and Fred together then I suggest watching Mystery Incorporated.

It surprised me how Scooby-Doo had never done a Phantom of the Opera based movie before this one. Stage Fright (SF) is pretty good. It's based in Chicago (GO BEARS!), which is pretty scary on it's own. Once upon a time, there was a ghost in the 80s who hated hippies, so he haunted the theatre and shut it down. Only for the theatre to re-open 30 years later. That means that the ghost is back 😨. I like the side characters, like the short guy, the magician guy and the scary lady singer. I wish the movie dedicated more time to them and dedicated less time to the STUPID VIOLIN GIRL. (Violin is not impressive). Think they could've dedicated more time the mystery instead of Daphne and Fred aswell. Good atmosphere, lots of spooky moments and plenty of twists and turns. (No Bean deducts a few points) GO HORNETS!