Will Forte – Tripping Through Gateways

Raunchy teen comedies with heart are the genre people love, but often, the genre falls kind of flat, especially when they start leaning into being shocking over a soul.

Molly and Amy are studious best friends who stayed focused on their studies so they could go off to a prestigious college and get high paying jobs. But when Molly discovers that all the slacker kids who made fun of them got into the same school or other Ivy League schools, she snaps. She convinces Amy they must attend the big pre-graduation party. There is one hiccup though, they do not know the address of the party.

The film follows the girls as they keep ending up at the wrong parties and dealing with crazy situations.

The film does something clever early on. At the start, we are really led to see the girls as outcasts whose lives were ruined by the mean kids. But as the story unravels, Molly and Amy start to question their friendship, with Molly being forced to question a lot about herself. And the mean kids? Don’t turn out to be that mean. Like, Amy and Molly could have been friends with these kids if they had not actually kind of looked down on them as dumb kids going nowhere.

When they get to the party, I kept waiting on a cliche that never came. I kept waiting for the scene where the mean kids humiliate them…and instead, the story flips it on it’s head. The heart of their friendship and self discovery takes over, rather than worrying about being outrageous.

Beanie Feldstein manages to really come close to the line of being obnoxious without actually crossing it, so Molly is flawed but still sympathetic. Kaitlyn Dever has the role that gives her an extra edge for being likable, as she is the straight man much of this film. But together, they really connect.

I really enjoyed Booksmart and am looking forward to Olivia Wilde’s upcoming career as a director.

So, originally, May was bringing the first theatrical Scooby Doo film in over a decade. Thanks to a Pandemic (and no doubt a hope by the studio to replicate the success of Trolls World Tour on VOD) it is instead reaching us in our homes.

Opening with a tale of how the gang met, the film jumps to the present, where an investor wants to financially support the Mystery Inc gang…as long as they leave out Shaggy and Scooby. Before the gang knows what is happening, Scooby and Shaggy run off on their own. When the two are attacked by robots, they are rescued by the Blue Falcon and his trusty partners Deedee and Dynomutt.

At first the duo are thrilled at the idea of hanging out with their favorite super-hero, but as Scooby seems to be drawn towards the Falcon’s adventure, Shaggy starts to become jealous. At the same time the Blue Falcon is doubting himself as a hero, fearing he can never match up to his father, the previous Blue Falcon. All the while the rest of the gang is trying to locate Scooby and Shaggy before the villain Dick Dastardly does so that he can unveil his evil master plan.

Scoob! is entertaining, though probably, kids will enjoy it far more than adults. The plot gets a little convoluted, eschewing the traditional Scooby Doo format of a simple mystery that needs unmasking and goes for a big and over the top plot. It is pretty clear that part of the purpose of Scoob! was to set up a Hannah-Barbara extended universe of films. And that sometimes overtakes the film. Dick Dastardly and his dog Muttley are here…we meet Captain Caveman and the end credits suggest future appearances by characters such as Jabberjaw and Atom Ant.

The film is trying really hard to be current and hip, which generally fails to work. I watched Scoob! with my nephews. They actually liked the film…but when we are introduced to the Blue Falcon, he dabs. My nine year old nephew states (and this is a direct quote) “He dabbed!!! That is SO SAD!!!! Nobody dabs anymore!”

Another area that hurt the film for me a bit was the voice cast. Since the death of Casey Kasem, Matthew Lillard has provided the voice of Shaggy. And he really is the voice (and managed to really capture the feel in the live action films as well). Grey Delisle Griffin has been the voice of Daphne Blake for nearly twenty years. I get that they are trying to be a new youthful take, but kids don’t see movies for the voice actors. And no disrespect is meant to Will Forte…but the end result here is that Shaggy sounds like someone trying to approximate the sound of Shaggy. I feel like it is a bit of a loss on our part that Lillard and DeLisle Griffin were not invited to return. It is pretty clear both love the characters and that is just missing here. While it is very clear they were disappointed, both actors have responded with a lot of grace.

One thing I did really like is the basic animation style. It walks a nice line of bringing the 2D animation to life. I really enjoy how they recreated the original opening Scooby Doo, Where Are You? title opener in the new style, so we get some fun throwbacks to the classic Scooby Doo monsters. And there is some neat 2D art used with the end credits.

Overall, Scoob! is not a disaster, but it is a whole more likely to entertain kids more than those with affection for the classic mystery solving team.

Tag: Will Forte

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Imitation of Life (Scoob!, 2020)