Director: Cecilia Aranovich, Ethan Spaulding
Writer: Jeremy Adams (Screenplay)
Starring: (Voice Talents) Frnak Welker, Grey Griffin, Matthew Lillard, Kate Micucci, Janell Cox, David Herman, John Michael Higgins
Plot: The gang is pulled out of retirement to investigate a mystery on a familiar zombie-infested island.
Runtime: 1 Hour 20 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Verdict: Standard Adventure
Story: Scooby-Doo: Return to Zombie Island starts when the Mystery Inc team, Fred, Daphne, Velma, Shaggy and Scooby-Doo decide to give up solving mysteries and sell the Mystery Machine, looking to have fun they win a holiday in a tropical island, which just so happens to be infested with zombies, but the group refuse to look to solve the mystery.
The resort the gang end up, just so happens to be Moonstar Island, the very location where the gang faced one of their few real mysteries of the supernatural, only the island has unfinished business with the gang and they must break their promise to not be involved with a mystery.
Thoughts on Scooby-Doo: Return to Zombie Island
Characters – Scooby-Doo and Shaggy have both become tired of solving mysteries, they want the team to stop and get their way, they win the holiday for the gang which sees them going to an old location needing to decide whether to let the group solve the mystery on the island. Fred has sold the Mystery Machine, he is having daytime dreams of it returning to him, where he judges most other vehicles for not being on the same level as his beloved. Daphne is here, though we don’t see anything we haven’t seen before from her, while Velma has a blog showing us just how the character has evolved for the time, which does show the frustration here character has when she can’t solve the mysteries anymore. Most of the new characters are left to feel just here with only Alan the hotel manager and Seaver being properly introduced.
Story – The story here follows the mystery inc gang who get invited back to an old location to solve the mystery from their past, only to find themselves needing to fight cat people once again. The story tries to be self-aware of many of the previous films, which has worked before, but for some reason doesn’t quite click this time. The fact we have seen the evolution of Velma and not the rest of the characters disappoints, which also seems to play along the idea of being a film within a film, that just again puts too much wink, wink, nudge, nudge to the audience. If you are a Scooby Doo fan, this story is everything you need, even if it does have a couple of flaws along the way.
Adventure/Comedy – The adventure does see the gang return to one of their most famous locations, which is different to much of what we have seen before, while the comedy does land in a couple of places very well.
Settings – The film does take the gang back to Moonscar island to face a new host of enemies in one of the most famous locations.
Animation – This does have the typical animation you are used to seeing for the Scooby Doo movies, it never lets down and works for the slapstick side of things.
Scene of the Movie – The big jump.
That Moment That Annoyed Me – Daphne is almost just painted background character.
Final Thoughts – This isn’t the best Scooby Doo animated movie, it disappoints in a lot of places with how it handles certain decisions in the story and too many wink wink nudge nudge moments.
Overall: Basic Scooby Doo.
