Official Synopsis
It’s one giant step for dog-kind as Scooby-Doo and the Gang blast off for an epic, other-worldly adventure in this all-new original movie! After winning the last 5 seats in a lottery, Scooby-Doo, Shaggy, Fred, Daphne and Velma are off to space in billionaire Sly Baron’s brand new ship, the Sly Star One. It’s all gravity-free fun until a mysterious alien begins destroying the ship! As the ship breaks down, the crew is forced to land on Sly Baron’s base… on the dark side of the moon! Will the gang unravel this alien mystery? Will Scooby-Doo and Shaggy find snacks on the moon? Will Fred ever take his space helmet off?! Journey to the outer limits with Scooby-Doo to find out!
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I’m always amazed that after so many years and after so much syndication, that Scooby-Doo feels young and fresh from time to time. The last review we did of Scooby and friends was a WWE crossover, which turned out to be much better than I expected it to be. It had some goofy moments, dragged a bit here and there, fought with some non-actors in the WWE wrestling family, but ultimately was somewhat entertaining. This time around, the cast is a bit more traditional and unknown (outside of the regular players), which can be a good thing — especially if you want to go back to some old Scooby-Doo roots.
Let’s get this mystery started, gang.
The first act of the movie starts out pretty well. You get the setup established where the group wins five seats on billionaire Sly Baron’s new rocket ship. Accompanying them to space is a group of not-so-friendly folks, a shallow Daphne-esque lady and a mouthy robot (who tells horrible jokes that only a father of children could appreciate). Something goes terribly wrong thanks to a menacing alien and the group finds themselves in Sly Baron’s moon base, where only terror (and humor) awaits them.
The first act is actually darn good. It’s what you would expect from a Scooby-Doo story formula, but the sincere amount of good humor between the gang and the group going with them into space is actually refreshing. Typically, like what was in the WWE movie, the cheap physical gags from Scooby/Shaggy are what drives things, with the rest of the gang towing the more serious line, but this time it’s not that. Fred (Frank Welker) is starstruck and talking like crazy. Velma (Mindy Cohn) is trying not to kill Daphne (Grey Griffin), who has befriended a fellow shallow person. The group, plus the two usual humor makers, is all in on the gag from the get-go, which makes the movie start out on the right foot. And the humor is actually well-written, probably better than most Scooby-Doo scripts.
As act two begins, the humor helps to balance out the Alien-esque terror that is created from the mysterious moon monster that has caused the group’s ship to make an emergency landing on the moon. The monster shows up periodically and terrifyingly throughout the film, and is actually a lot scarier than most of the Scooby-Doo monsters that have shown up in past episodes and movies (including the WWE movie). Director Paul McEvoy and writer Mark Banker do a fantastic job with creating a menacing scenario for these trapped participants on the moon. They do an excellent job with making sure the viewer fully understands how isolated and alone the group is and how real the monster’s intentions are. Act two is wonderful, terrifying and everything you would/should expect from a Scooby-Doo mystery.
The only gripe about act two is that the pace slows down considerably in the story. We go from a witty Scooby-Doo movie to nearly a space horror, though it never quite crosses that line. The shift is warranted, as you want to keep the viewer on their toes at all time. I think that act two has more than enough time to develop, but might have too much time lingering around for no good reason. When it starts to move towards the third act of the story, the want/need to get there is firmly in the eyes of the movie goer. I know it sounds silly, but sometimes there can be too much development (over-development) to the story, which causes a bit of unrest for a conclusion. This is the case for Scooby-Doo! Moon Monster Madness. We know what is going on with the group and how serious their situation is, but director and writer seem to want to keep reinforcing that a bit more here and there. It’s almost tiring seeing it go on.
When the third act is finally reached, it ends well. While I won’t reveal the third act, and you can pretty much guess how it’s going to go if you have watched Scooby-Doo for the past 30+ years, just know that it ends properly. It concludes how it should conclude and it’s a satisfying ending.
Overall, I think that Scooby-Doo! Moon Monster Madness is one of those movies where you can tell the cast has actually enjoyed the story and how it was written. It shows when the dialogue is delivered onscreen. That is a huge plus and a good draw when deciding on whether you want to watch ‘another Scooby-Doo movie’. It’s certainly worth your time and effort, if not just for the acting and writing. Like I stated above, I think that maybe the production team didn’t know how to transition the film to the third act, so it tends to feel a bit lost and long in the tooth because of that. It does find a way out eventually and it ends just fine, but you can see there was some struggle in the middle. Again, this is my only gripe.
Otherwise, you have a good Scooby-Doo movie with Moon Monster Madness. It’s good enough for any Scooby-Doo fans and more than good enough for older children to enjoy (probably not safe for younger kids).
On the special features side of the tracks, you get one feature called Space Travel is Groovy. It’s a decent feature about space travel that is led by Mindy Cohn (love her) and kids should get a kick out of it. Other than that, there’s not much else on the special features side of things.