Official Synopsis
When Shaggy and Scooby win tickets to WrestleMania, they convince the entire Mystery Inc. gang to travel to WWE City in the Mystery Machine to enjoy the show. But the trip quickly turns into another mystery as WWE City is full of secrets! A mysterious ghostly bear appears and threatens to ruin the show and steal the championship title belt. With the help of WWE Superstars John Cena, Triple H, Sin Cara, Brodus Clay, AJ Lee, The Miz, Santino Marella and Kane, Scooby-Doo and The Mystery Inc. gang team up to solve the case before it is too late!
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What a heckuva cross-promotion in a Scooby-Doo animated movie. If you could imagine the two most random things in life coming together into one fun feature-length cartoon, I’m pretty sure it would still not be as weird as WWE and Scooby-Doo. But it is just that weird and oddly enough the story works to satisfy both WWE fans and Scooby fans.
The film starts off as you would imagine every Scooby-Doo starts with, a mystery beyond explanation. A ghostly bear terrorizes WWE City (where all the wrestlers reside — duh) and is looking to keep the place as shutdown as it can. Injuring wrestlers and destroying property, the bear seems virtually unstoppable. Well, unstoppable until the gang shows up on a funny happenstance. Just in time for the mystery, Scooby and Shaggy win tickets to WrestleMania, which ends up throwing them and the crew into the middle of the ghostly bear problem the town is having.
Then story shifts a bit.
During the gang’s stay, the WWE Championship belt is stolen and smack in the middle of the theft is our favorite dog Scooby. To repent for his supposed thieving ways, Scooby, and his accomplice Shaggy, has to get in the ring against Kane for the WWE belt. As two seemingly impossible storylines start to form, and you wonder where the story truly is headed, the ghostly bear decides to show up again and then the mystery starts to unravel.
I won’t say another word, as beyond that point we’re spiraling towards the big reveal in the movie.
What is amazing about this film is that the build-up and execution of the mystery fits perfectly within the scheme of things. Going into this movie I was pretty sure that Warner Brothers would find a way to uninterestedly drag out the cross-promotion of both brands into some very shallow and dense storyline, but surprisingly enough the story holds its ground. Even better, the story adds a fantastic, even humorous WWE environment that does and doesn’t take itself serious as the mystery gets deeper and deeper. You get a good variety of popular wrestlers who, in such wrestling fashion, don’t break from their character, even in an animated movie. It’s a real variety of one-liners and serious moments built around the WWE theme, wrapped into the typical Scooby-Doo mystery template.
Director Bradon Vietti and writer Michael Ryan had no issues keeping all of this madness together. Was it perfect all the way around? No, but it was entertaining and there wasn’t really a point in the movie where I was wishing it was over (I’ve seen plenty of animated features where I felt like that). It truly felt like a good ol’ Scooby-Doo mystery that came together perfectly with the WWE world. I will take that any day of the week.
It’s extremely well done and better than I expected it to be.
Now, as for the voice overs, the WWE stars did their best. Some of the stars were used to this acting gig (John Cena), while others struggled to find the write words (Triple H). I have to commend them for doing their best, as they did all add some WWE flavor to the movie. Special kudos needs to go out to The Miz, who was absolutely hilarious (he is awesome — you’ll find that out at the beginning). All in all, the voice acting wasn’t bad, though I doubt we’ll see any Emmys heading their way anytime soon.
In short, if you like Scooby-Doo then don’t think twice about the weird cross-over between it and WWE. It actually works out really well.
As for the Blu-ray portion of the film, the movie looks spectacular. It’s tough to mess up animation in HD. It was probably born in a clear, crispy way when it was animated and the Blu-ray maintains that clarity. All the colors in the film stand out (lots of gorgeous blues, yellows, reds and blacks/whites). Heck even the flexing of John Cena’s chest muscles stand out — yes, they are animated.
Having watched a ton of TBS as a kid, which syndicated Scooby-Doo every weeknight, the movie is faithful to the animated style of Scooby-Doo of the past and translates the wrestlers perfectly to that world. There are no compromises to style, which makes this impressive considering the content and storyline.
Finally, as for features, here’s what you are getting:
– Behind-the0Scenes with Scooby-Doo and the WWE Gang
– Wrestle Maniacs
Not too much here, but enough to make the Blu-ray purchase worthwhile. You get a good behind-the-scenes with WWE cast, as well as a bonus episode of Scooby-Doo. A strong value for $24.98 (cheaper on Amazon).
Own it on Blu-ray combo pack or Digital HD March 25th
