Computer-generated
imagery, more popularly known as “CGI,” has done wonderful things for cinema.
It has allowed filmmakers to fully realize their complex visions of faraway
planets, alien species, and gigantic explosions. Things that were not possible
for decades are now possible, and without this new technology films such as Gravity would not exist. However, with
every step forward there will inevitably be those that use these newfound powers
for evil. One such cinematic villain is Raja Gosnell, and he must be stopped before
he does any more harm to himself, others, and various animated television properties
from the Hanna-Barbera library.
Gosnell began
his career as an editor on such films as Teen
Wolf Too, Pretty Woman, Mrs. Doubtfire, Rookie of the Year and the first two
installments in the Home Alone
franchise. This allowed him to slide into the director’s chair on the
Culkin-less Home Alone 3, and from
that point on there was no looking back. After getting his feet wet with Never Been Kissed and Big Momma’s House, Gosnell finally dove
headfirst into the horror with 2002’s Scooby-Doo,
a magnificent miscalculation that nonetheless was able to fool me the first
time I saw it as a 10-year-old child. Admittedly, that was at a time when
anything with bright colors, loud noises and copious fart jokes would probably
do the trick, and in Scooby-Doo I
found precisely the entertainment I was looking for. Revisiting the film more than
a decade later, only now do I realize the error of my ways.
Like many bad
movies, it wasn’t until late in the game that the creators of Scooby-Doo settled on a final identity for
the film. Screenwriter James Gunn, who later went on to make Slither, Super, and the forthcoming Guardians
of the Galaxy, has spoke openly about his original intention to create an edgier, PG-13 version of Scooby-Doo. This
film would not be a direct adaptation of the show, but rather a parody of the
series that gave the formula a slightly more adult twist. Now, this might not be
the world’s greatest idea, but at least it would have had some coherence to it.
The powers at be eventually decided to tone the content down to PG levels, but
certain “adult” jokes still remained. The result is a film that seems to be
aiming for a different audience every 30 seconds. One second there is a sincere
conversation about a the importance of teamwork, and then later an animated dog is accusing a human of not having the “scrote” to do his job. I’m sure that
didn’t cause any children to awkwardly ask their parents what “scrote” means.
There’s also the line where Shaggy tells his love interest that Mary Jane is
“his favorite name,” because yeah that’s subtle.
During the
animation surge of the early ’00s, there was much talk about how those movies
were “great for the kids” but also gave adults something to enjoy. It seemed as
though this was the reaction every time a good Pixar or DreamWorks movie came
out. However, those two companies attacked this mission from entirely different
directions. DreamWorks Animation, which exploded with 2001’s Shrek, relied mostly on pop culture
references that adults would understand, while Pixar had much loftier goals of
actually telling an interesting and emotional story. The DreamWorks formula
sometimes worked, admittedly, but the success of those films led to a wave of
imitators that thought the winning formula was “children’s movie plot + pop culture
jokes aimed at grown-ups = gold!” That wound up bleeding over into live action
filmmaking, and such atrocities as Scooby-Doo
were born.
The inherent
problem with Scooby-Doo is that it
was a film originally designed to poke fun at its own source material, but then
it attempted to turn back around and be a half-sincere adaptation of that material.
The individual actors all look like their animated inspirations, but as
written, the characters wind up being nothing
like their animated inspirations. Of the central foursome, the most impressive performance of the bunch is Matthew Lillard's work as Shaggy. The other three mostly have the costumes do the work for them, and I say that as someone who usually adores Linda Cardellini. Anyone watching Scooby-Doo looking to
get a clear picture of what the original animated series was like is going to
get a very inaccurate impression. (Yes, I know that person probably doesn’t
exist.) The potential is there to deconstruct the Scooby formula in interesting ways, but Gosnell only hints at such
things.
And then there’s
the plot, which couldn’t possibly interest anyone in the target audience: after
a few years apart, the central gang gets back together to solve a mystery at
the ingeniously-named Spooky Island, a spring break destination run by Rowan
Atkinson. The college kids arrive ready to have a good time, but during their
stay on the island it seems as though something or someone is transforming them
into more sinister beings. Thus begins not even 90 minutes of pointless,
chaotic nonsense, and at no point does Gosnell pause to give this thing even a
lick of intelligence or wit. It just goes from ill-advised setpiece to
ill-advised setpiece, and then it ends. Because apparently I hate myself, I
followed up this viewing of Scooby-Doo
with a journey through 15 minutes of deleted scenes. And you know what? Almost every one
of them would have improved the movie!
Obviously, these
scenes would not have made Scooby-Doo
a good film. That would be like
saying a roll of duct tape could fix a 10-foot hole in your bedroom wall. But
almost every one of the above deleted scenes is an example of something the
finished film is completely lacking: character moments. The most obvious
examples are the flashbacks that were supposed to occur when the team reunites for the first time at the
airport. Within the film itself, each character describes how their lives are
going and Gosnell gives us no reason to not take them at face value. These deleted flashbacks actually give us an idea as to what the characters have
accomplished, and not accomplished, in the years since the split. In
fact, Velma has a line about “a journey of self-discovery” that makes no sense without the flashback, and yet Gosnell
kept it in the movie. With Scooby-Doo,
he was on a journey to create the most ruthlessly efficient headache machine he
could. Anything that even smelled
extraneous had to go.
He'd much rather go right to the gold, such as a series of lowbrow body switch jokes and a rather graphic shot
of Scrappy-Doo peeing on Daphne. The original Scooby-Doo series may not have been high art—heck, it might not even be good—but
this film takes it all the way down through the gutter and into the deepest circle
of hell where the very idea of bodily waste is the most inherently hilarious
thing imaginable. Unfortunately, and perhaps inevitably, Scooby-Doo turned out to be a massive hit thanks to 10-year-old
idiots like myself. In fact, it was so successful that it spawned a sequel
subtitled Monsters Unleashed, which I
know I saw, but I remember precisely none of it. Scooby-Doo’s success would have long-term implications as well, and
Gosnell has become the man Hollywood turns to whenever they want to haphazardly mix CGI
cartoon characters and live action. After the completion of the Scooby-Doo saga, Gosnell would go on to
make Beverly Hills Chihuahua, The Smurfs, and The Smurfs 2. This has undoubtedly made him a very rich man, but I
have a hard time believing these are the movies he always dreamed of making once he got his big break.
What aspiring director lays in his bed at night and dreams of creating such
things? Of course, I cannot pretend to know what I am talking about. Perhaps
Gosnell is creatively fulfilled right where he is. If so, good for him. Doesn’t
mean I have to like it.
Anyway, I leave
you with this video of Sugar Ray’s cameo in Scooby-Doo.
After all, it’s always a good sign when a movie features a Sugar Ray cameo,
right?
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