Scooby-Doo! The Mystery Begins

This made for TV prequel to the fun, all-star Warner Brothers movies suffers from dodgy casting decisions (a non-blond Fred, a Japanese Velma, a rather chunky Daphne, a curly haired Shaggy), very iffy CGI, and a mystery that is far too easy to figure out. It's lightweight, silly, spooky fun, and passable entertainment for the kids, I suppose, but it's not a patch on the gang's two previous live-action outings.

The simple story sees a young Shaggy (Nick Palatas), Scooby (voiced by Frank Welker), Fred (Robbie Amell), Daphne (Kate Melton) and Velma (Hayley Kiyoko) teaming up to find out who is behind the resurrection of a pair of ghosts who are haunting their high-school. In traditional Scooby Doo style, there are several suspects, but the real culprit should be glaringly obvious to anyone who has been paying attention.

Admittedly, there's some fun to be had from seeing how Mystery Inc. formed, and I enjoyed the scene in which Velma gets a sexy makeover by Daphne (gotta love a hot Asian nerd!), but all in all, this adventure lacks the magic, spectacle and quality that a better cast and a bigger budget allows.

If you liked the cartoons you will like this movie. It is enjoyable and will keep the kids entertained. The story is simple the characters stay true to the cartoon ones and the best part is everybody loves Scooby Doo. This takes us back to when they first combine as an investigative group, having to defend their names at high school after some strange mishaps. I am not sure what the budget was on the film some simple effects have been used to keep production costs down. I give it a 6 out of 10 as it is lacking some substance, but still puts allot of bigger budget movies to shame. Overall worth watching with the kids and I hope they continue on and make more of this series.

Casting not perfect but still good for the adaptation of the saga of mysteries that wants to tell the first adventure of the group by bringing the story of how the group came together for the first time to solve the mystery of their school. Too family-friendly and slightly too ridiculous film that seems to have crossed the line between faithful adaptation and too ridiculous to seriously consider. Even the story itself is not that great because it is too hasty, for heaven's sake, the idea is not bad but it is developed in a very fractious and poorly cared for way so much that it is unable to make the general idea that the adaptation would like to give well .

My brother & I probably watched every episode of the original Hannah Barbara Scooby Doo cartoons in the 80's and so I am very leery of all these newer versions that keep popping up. There was a certain feel in those originals that will never be reproduced and perhaps Scooby is best left in the 70's. I was pretty let down by the Freddie Prince Jr. movies which tried to update Scooby (like a lot of CGI updates, Alvin & the Chipmunks, Smurfs, Garfield, Transformers, etc.)with modern lingo & culture which for some reason means crudeness, krass jokes and even sexual innuendos. This movie was better in that sense, but is annoying when they stray from the original (Freddie is blond, ghosts are ALWAYS people in masks, etc.) And since we're making a "realistic" version, why is Scooby CGI? Why not just use a real Great Dane? Nick Palatas, though doing a decent impression of Casey Kacem's "Shaggy" voice comes across annoying and contrived after a while. Maybe I'm a purist...maybe I'm a grouch, but I kind of wish people would leave the old cartoons alone.

I sat down to watch the 2009 movie "Scooby-Doo! The Mystery Begins" with my 9 year old son, as he wanted to watch it. And since we usually watch the animated movies together, I sat down to watch this live-action movie with him.

Right, well whereas he enjoyed the movie, I found it to be, well less interesting. The storyline was adequate, for sure, because it definitely had the spirit of the classic formula used in the Scooby-Doo! animated movies. But there was just something that didn't appeal to me. Oh wait, it was the live-action part. Scooby-Doo! does not translate well as a live-action movie, especially not with such horrible CGI animation.

Scooby-Doo looked like something from an early 2000s computer game and he stuck out like a sore thumb. It was just impossible to take a liking to that aspect of the movie. But at least my 9 year old son enjoyed it.

I quickly lost interest in this abysmal foray into the Scooby-Doo! universe, but my son endured it to the end and he was genuinely entertained.

This 2009 movie is without a doubt aimed for a young audience, whereas the animated movies are more easily adaptable to a mature audience as well.

I wasn't entertained, and my rating of "Scooby-Doo! The Mystery Begins" is a mere four out of ten stars.