Scooby-Doo! and the Gourmet Ghost

After attempting to watch the Lego Scooby movies, the second WWE film, and Shaggy's Showdown, and hating every boring second of each one, I finally found a good one. This movie isn't amazing but it's definitely way better than the ones mentioned before it. The voice acting (other than Velma) is on point. The animation is great and the story could use some work. Overall, it's worth a watch.

I thought that this latest "Scooby-Doo" movie was pretty enjoyable. As far as "Scooby" films that feature celebrities go, I thought that this was probably the best one the franchise has done yet. Whereas the two WWE crossovers mostly felt like wrestling commercials, this one feels much more like a real movie, even if it has its flaws.

I may be a bit biased here, since I am a huge fan of The Food Network. Getting to see Bobby Flay and Giada de Laurentiis be a part of the adventure and working with the gang was pretty fun, and we got some decent humor out of them. I liked the idea of Fred being Bobby's nephew.

The storyline was fairly interesting with some good fictional lore thrown in there. The film is really well-animated and the atmosphere is pretty nice. I also enjoyed seeing a lot of tasty looking food on screen.

As for negatives, I wouldn't say that all of the jokes hit. The "shhhh" gag that ran throughout the movie, in particular, was beaten into the ground. I found Shaggy and Scooby rather annoying in this one (as to be expected from "Scooby-Doo" movies these days), and the film kind of dragged in some places.

All in all, I mostly enjoyed this one. It's far from the best movie in the "Scooby-Doo" franchise, but it's also pretty far from the worst. Recommended to fans of the franchise and fans of The Food Network.

RATING: B

Scooby and the gang travel to New England, where Fred's uncle, celebrity (apparently?) chef Bobby Flay (voicing himself), has inherited a historic colonial inn and turned it into a state-of-the-art culinary resort. But as the grand opening approaches, it seems the ghost of Bobby's ancestor has other ideas, scaring away workers and sabotaging high-tech food preparation equipment. Good job a gang of 'teenage mystery solvers' are on hand!

Beautiful artwork and animation, very good story, atmospheric setting, and one really creepy looking ghost. Flay does well, as do fellow celebrities (?) Marcus Samuelsson, Giada De Laurentiis, and Maya Haile, all of whom voice themselves. Regular voice cast Frank Welker, Grey DeLisle, Matthew Lillard, and Kate Micucci are, of course, note perfect.

One gripe, sound mixing. A few times the tail-ends of comments made by the leads are lost to fade, or other speech/sound drowns them out. I had to replay them a few times to catch what was said. But the script is good. Shaggy and Velma get some great one-liners. At 77 minutes long, it could have done with another five minutes. But this is a solid entry in the Scooby-Doo canon (using that word loosely!). 8/10.

This Scooby-Doo is one of the better new age Scooby films. It follows classic plot structure and incorporates a fair amount of classic gags from the original series. 'Uncle Bobby' (Bobby Flay) is a fun crossover character who you don't need to have any background information on in order to enjoy his addition to this mystery. Scooby-Doo and the Gourmet Ghost is wonderfully animated and voiced, has a handful of 'blink and you miss it' visual gags and one-liners that will make you chuckle out loud, and is a coherent mystery for those who like to follow along at home.

The creaters did the gang right with this one. If you can get over the fact Scooby gets along with cats in this movie, this will be one to add to you watchlist.

Gourmet Ghost is just behind Camp Scare as the best Scooby Doo movies of all time, and has a real argument for being a 10 star movie. The plot is one of the best, with elements that are certainly solvable but not obvious. There were plenty of clues and it was put together well, in a way that makes the ending both a genuinely surprising twist and also fits everything together perfectly. The animation is gorgeous and adds to many of the scenes. The humor is generally very funny, though I agree with many that the Shh's were overdone and not funny after the first couple. The modernization and themes considered were also a cut above most of the movies - how technology advances everything (in this case cooking) but is also fundamentally manipulable, and minor historical and other notes. It doesn't do anything too crazy (though the ending is a bit unique), but it does everything well and is a complete joy to watch.