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Scooby-Doo

Generally unfavorable reviews
Based on 31 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 48 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Family/Kids
Written by:
James Gunn (also story)
Craig Titley (story)
William Hanna (characters)
Joseph Barbera (characters)
Directed by: Raja Gosnell
Release Date:
Theatrical: June 14, 2002
DVD: October 11, 2002
Running Time: 86 minutes, Color
Origin: USA / Australia
Summary
RATING: PG for some rude humor, language and some scary action
Starring Freddie Prinze Jr., Sarah Michelle Gellar, Matthew Lillard, Linda Cardellini, Scott Innes, Rowan Atkinson, Isla Fisher, and Andrew Bryniarski
Scooby Doo and the Mystery Inc. gang take their animated antics to the big screen as a live-action movie.
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Washington Post Hank Stuever
You don't want to love this, but you will. Although Scooby-Doo falls far short of becoming the "Blazing Saddles" of Generations X, Y and Z, it is hard to resist in its moronic charms.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir
No serious film fan could stomach the cheap gags and farting contests in this goofball tribute. I laughed myself stupid anyway.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Ron Wells
At least the 20 people who saw it with me -- found it hysterically funny. On the other hand, they all seemed pretty stoned.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
Would I see it again? Not even for a Scooby snack.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Robert K. Elder
Knows when to take itself seriously and when to laugh at itself -- even if its audience isn't laughing along at every gag.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach
Bland, inoffensive, formulaic and occasionally amusing - just like the animated kids' show that inspired it.
Variety Joe Leydon
Just fast, frenetic and funny enough to amuse both new fans and longtime devotees of the characters who have inspired more than 30 years worth of animated TV episodes and made-for-video features.
Read Full Review >Village Voice J. Hoberman
As this movie knows what it is, Scooby-Doo's a relatively painless 85 minutes.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman
The movie is so shiny, bright and noisy, the under-10 set ought to be sufficiently entertained.
TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
As live-action adaptations of cheap, unapologetically stupid cartoons go, this is top of the line: The cast is appealing, the sets brightly colored and fun to look at, the mystery as lame and goofy as any featured in the many inexplicably beloved Scooby-Doo cartoons.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Jonathan Curiel
Do you really want to spend money watching what is essentially marginality, or would those dollars be better used to see a better film or even buy a good book?
Read Full Review >Time Joel Stein
The cast does great impressions of the original cartoon characters, and the computer-generated Scooby is convincing, but it turns out that what we liked about Scooby-Doo in the first place was that nobody was trying.
Read Full Review >Charlotte Observer Mark Washburn
I took a 12-year-old along to Scooby Doo just in case I didn't get it. Our verdict: one paw up, one paw down.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones
Scooby's just so dang cute, what's the point in grousing?
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Christopher Muther
This dog will inevitably let down purists looking for the elusive combination of smart and funny.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
The film's technological selling point -- having a computer-animated Scooby in a mostly live-action world -- is strangely unimpressive. In fact, it's virtually unnoticeable: a testament perhaps to the audience's increasing knowledge that in today's CG-driven Hollywood, all movies are cartoons.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
The antics involving ghosts, chases, and burping that divert the small fry don't mix with the jokey, tribute-band dialogue spouting from the Mystery, Inc. gang.
Read Full Review >USA Today Claudia Puig
It's unclear why the writers bothered to update the cartoon, unless it was to expand the possibilities for quips and jokey ideas. If so, they failed in their mission, as the movie elicits few laughs.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Connie Ogle
The best thing you can say about Scooby-Doo is that Matthew Lillard makes a really, really good Shaggy.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
Captures the essence of its TV inspiration, which is to say that it's not nearly as clever as it thinks it is. It also feels very, very long.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey
Mostly, the plot is busy and incomprehensible and the action sequences directed with all the art of a detonation.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Robin Rauzi
As reformulated by the aggressively mediocre director Raja Gosnell and screenwriter James Gunn, this Scooby-Doo is entertainment more disposable than Hanna-Barbera's half-hour cartoons ever were.
Read Full Review >New York Post Lou Lumenick
This excruciating adaptation of the innocuous '70s cartoon show makes the film version of "Josie and the Pussycats" look sophisticated by comparison.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
Not only am I ill-prepared to review the movie, but I venture to guess that anyone who is not literally a member of a Scooby-Doo fan club would be equally incapable. This movie exists in a closed universe, and the rest of us are aliens. The Internet was invented so that you can find someone else's review of Scooby-Doo. Start surfing.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Kim Morgan
Scooby-Doo is bad. Let's just get that right out of the way. Filled with unclever quips, tired humor, a lazy silliness and bland execution, the picture is a tedious puff of nothing.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Ernest Hardy
Director Raja Gosnell apparently doesn't even try to pump life into this wan film version of the beloved Saturday-morning cartoon.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Get out your pooper-scoopers. Doo happens June 14th, warn the ads for Scooby-Doo. And they say there's no truth in Hollywood.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan
The gratuitous vulgarity is just one more reason that Scooby-Doo should never have left the pound.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin
A work of Battlefield Earth-level miscalculation.
Read Full Review >New Times (L.A.) Robert Wilonsky
Warner Bros. is presumably aiming this movie not at children but at full-grown dopers with bad munchies glued to the Cartoon Network. Dude, pass the Scooby snacks.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 5.5 (out of 10) based on 48 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Jeff V. gave it an8:
If you never "got" Scooby Doo, then don't go see it; and don't rate it! I grew up with Scooby Doo, am in my 40's, and I LOVe these movies! Except for Fred and Daphnie, the characters are right-on the mark. Fred and Daphnie are actually deeper in the movie than they were in the cartoon. But it is really about Scooby, Shaggy, and the brains of Velma; In other words, it's not the good-looking popular types that save the day, it's the goofy or brainy misfits. A good message to children who may be feeling awkward; showing that even the fearful, goofy or nerdy ones can be cool; and usually turn out to be the coolest. A really fun nostalgic ride. And yes, we all hated Scrappy ;-)
Andrew B gave it a1:
Received the DVD as a free throw-away from British Telecommunications. Presumably an advertising gimmick. Watched this sat on setee with my son with my knee packed in ice after an injury and him recovering from a viral infection. Seems to sum up the film well - him recovering from vomiting and me in agony. Hopefully it'll be years and years before either of us is ill enough to watch it again. I recall watching the cartoons after school years and years ago. Wish I'd got myself a life and smashed the box.... British Telecommunications? A profits warning a few years ago....I hope they sacked that advertising executive....but that'll explain why they were giving away the DVD for free! No sane person would want to own one - surely not.
christopher b gave it a6:
I laughed but four times watching this DVD. I wouldn't suggest you watch it evey day.
Decepticon P. gave it a 0:
Pure agony. I was really looking forward to this but the event itself was worse than being stuck in a lift with Coldplay without sharp objects to hand.
Gabor A. gave it a 0:
There are brief moments of bearable humor, but its realy hard to laugh with puke in your mouth. I hated the show but nothing prepared me for the sickening vulgar disgust this movie calls jokes. And when its not stupid or vulgar its just flat out annoying. All the pills in a CVS couldnt make this watchable let alone entertaining.
raVen gave it a 5:
(4.5) Fans of the original cartoon series who watch this movie will become even greater fans of the original cartoon series, and recall how much better it was (is). The best explanation for this movie's shortcomings, I think, is that it tried to complicate the simplicity that made Scooby Doo Where Are You? so charming....The makers used what they thought we all liked about the idea (See: knowing innuendo and firmly entrenched character traits) and lampooned what they thought we didn't like about it (See: knowing innuendo and firmly entrenched character traits). They created a cynical self-promoting through self-mocking schizophrenia that is crowned at last by a matching surprise ending. I can't be sure, but I would guess that a lot of loving care went into the production of the animated classic -- campy as it might seem to many. It was innocent fun. This film has none of that, but instead the feeling that it was accomplished at the behest of royalty-hungry Hollywood creatures that may bear close resemblance to this ghastly CGI Scooby. For their part, I think the MTV-brand actors did everything they could, (not much,--but still) and I didn't mind their attempted expansion of their characters' range. But a sad mess otherwise.
Layne gave it a 6:
The director takes a reasonably fun idea and turns it into a crude, dark, blasted satire, and yet it still manages to have fun with itself.
