Scooby-Doo! Shaggy's Showdown

This is easily one of the funniest installments in the Scooby Doo Movies. Almost all of the jokes are brilliant and some are just too much not to laugh at.

The Daphne/Velma dynamic is such a great spotlight on the entire series that, when it's played out at the museum it forces you to laugh.

And the Fred jokes, combined with the Fred assumptions, are in character and hysterical.

Not only that, but the setting is classic Scooby, Velma is for once a GREAT source of comedy, and the way they mock studio executives and the current fad in movies is oh so fitting.

Fun. Fun. Fun.

And, unlike so many of the Scooby Movies, the ending works well.

It's not as brilliantly funny/creepy as the classic Witch's Ghost and Zombie Island but it totally makes up for the previous installment and has more laughs than any other movie to date.

This time the Scooby gang heads out to the wild west and deal with a ghost outlaw.

Animation looks beautiful and keeps the bright colors they've been using over the past few years.

The plot was a bit hit-or-miss however. Don't get me wrong, the main plot with the ghost and Shaggy being a descendant of him works. Velma also has this recurring bit about something that bugs her, but I won't spoil it as it's pretty funny. There are also some funny lines sprinkled throughout. However, lot of scenes seem arbitrary and don't add much. Not enough time is spent on action and hijinks. They could have cut down on some of the suspects who can be pretty irrelevant. The weird family and the cook are funny, but the sisters and producers were unnecessary. They also try something a little different from the traditional catching of the culprit conclusion, but it just isn't exciting as the elaborate trap and unmasking.

Of course, I'm probably over-analyzing a children's film. For parents, it'll keep your children entertained and should bare repeat viewings without driving you crazy.

Scooby-Doo! Shaggy's Showdown (2017)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Scooby and the gang head out West for a vacation. This vacation spot is the location of Shaggy's relative who was a notorious outlaw. Sure enough, right before the gang shows up a ghost of the outlaw shows up terrorizing people. Now it's up the the gang to track down the bad guy.

SCOOBY-DOO! SHAGGY'S SHOWDOWN isn't the greatest film in the series but it's certainly a step up from the past few titles. I was really nervous going into this one because, to be frank, a couple of the previous movies were pretty darn lazy, boring and just not all that interesting. This one here is pretty much standard material but it's at least fun and worth watching.

I really liked the bad guy this time out. It's a gunslinger ghost but he glows green and shoots out green fire from his gun. I really thought the animation was very good on the bad guy and he was just a fun villain to root against. Scooby is given a pretty good part here and Shaggy is forced to do some stuff he doesn't normally do. In fact, I enjoyed seeing them two having to take action and be brave for a change.

Scooby and the gang head out to the Wild West. Of course, when they get there they find the town is being terrorised by a ghost - outlaw Dapper Jack, who (wouldn't you know it!) turns out to have been an ancestor of Shaggy's!

The story's good. There are some hilarious lines and situations (Fred trying to shoe a horse with a car-jack, and Shaggy and Scooby's ridiculous rock-side plunge are two that stick out), as well as some touching ones. The artwork and animation are excellent. And whilst I'm not a huge fan of the western setting, the movie makes the most of it with just about every cliche you can think of (and I mean that in a good way!). Even the title music has more than a hint of Ennio Morricone.

There are a couple of issues. 1) There are way too many featured characters who contribute absolutely nothing to the story. They have a lot of lines, but serve no purpose whatsoever. And 2), the movie really hits a slump around the 60 minute mark, with a dragged out rodeo/parade sequence, and a completely shoehorned mini pop concert by one of those pointless characters. It's as though the makers suddenly found themselves five minutes under the 77 minute runtime and had to start padding. Once it gets back on track it soon picks up, but that slump definitely robs the 'big reveal' of some punch. Thankfully, Frank Welker, Grey DeLisle, Matthew Lillard, and Kate Micucci bring it as they always do, with solid support from the rest of the voice cast. And there's a nice little surprise scene just before the end credits.

Without the time-wasting this would have been an easy 8/10. Fortunately, what's good still gets it a 7.5.

Let's be real for a second, Scooby-Doo movies are not high art, and that's perfectly okay. Thankfully the people over at Warner Brothers are aware of this and have never taken the franchise too seriously.

I've not seen many of these movies but this one was pretty okay. The animation looked like classic Scooby-Doo which I'm sure would please die hard Scoob fans, but it didn't really do much for me.

The plot is the standard Scooby-Doo affair, you can more or less figure out what's going on in the first half an hour. The main stand out of this film however is the humour. Velma's anger at a website font choice, Fred debating which net to use to catch the ghost, a 12 year old YouTube rapper doing a concert at a rodeo in a ghost town? Hilarious. It doesn't sound funny but goddamn most of the jokes land really well.

Unfortunately they try to cram too much into this movie, there were a bunch of throwaway gags and characters that served no real purpose and overall the story and animation were pretty bland.

So if you want a funny Scooby-Doo movie that you can watch with your brain turned off, go for it. If you're looking for something with an engaging western story, go watch High Noon.