The Scooby-Doo franchise has been a pop culture staple since its debut in 1969, coming out with multiple movies and animated series. The first live-action film was released in 2002, and a sequel was made in 2004. While the first movie didn’t receive great reviews from critics, many kids enjoyed it. Growing up and seeing these opinions raises an important question: Was the 2002 live action Scooby-Doo actually that good? In the movie, the gang splits up and has to reunite while solving a mystery of people being possessed on an island resort. While the plot line was entertaining and didn’t have crazy holes, there were weird lines and some references that definitely flew over heads. One of which being the stoner allusions with Shaggy. Towards the beginning, Shaggy and Scooby are cooking in the mystery machine, however the scene shows smoke floating out of the van with the sound of Shaggy coughing. On the flight over to the island, Shaggy meets a girl named Mary-Jane and he excitedly says that’s his favorite name, a nod to marijuana. A little over halfway through, most of the gang gets possessed by monsters and their souls are found and sent back by Shaggy. When this happens, Daphne and Fred return to the wrong bodies and the first thing Fred does is look down Daphne’s dress. The main villain of the movie is revealed to be Scrappy-Doo: a less likable and smaller version of Scooby. When his history with the main crew is shown, one of the first things he does is pee on Daphne. While some scenes were extremely questionable, many things were okay or well done, such as the transitions between actors and their stunt doubles. The music in the movie was also very catchy and unique. For the most part, the CGI was pretty average; It blended poorly with the lighting in most scenes but wasn’t too terrible. Overall, if you can look past some of the odd scene choices in this movie, it isn’t terrible for an older audience but it’s way easier to watch as a kid.
