As a fan of both Scooby-Doo! and DC Comics, this direct to video movie is a pure delight and just as fun as I hoped it would be.
When the Justice League disappears, Lois Lane and Jimmy Olson go into the Hall of Justice to investigate. When they go in, they are scared out by a phantom. To take care of this creepy mystery they call the Mystery Inc. gang to investigate. When the Mystery Inc. Gang arrives in Metropolis; they find with the Justice League gone the city is overrun with Supervillains. The gang teams up with Kyrpto the super dog to save the day.
This movie is simply a lot of fun. The whole movie moves at a very fast pace with gags and action galore. Because of this the film is non-stop fun from start to finish. Most of the gags are quite good. I especially love some of the incidental gags, such as Scooby putting on a red lantern ring, Scooby and Shaggy running away from Solomon Grundy on Flash's Cosmic Treadmill or Shaggy shooting a variety of crazy and increasingly silly arrows from Green Arrow's arsenal. These are just little cartoon jokes that could have easily been left out but add so much to the fun. These little moments also perfectly capture the spirit of this film. They have fun with the sillier parts of DC's history but never makes fun of them. As someone who loves the sillier parts of DC comics, this movie serves as a perfect tribute to just what I love about DC comics. For DC fans there are so many fun Easter eggs to try and catch here. And for Hanna-Barbera fans some of these Easter eggs even reference the Super Friends cartoons. The action scenes are a lot of fun as well and a delight to watch. The climatic action scene is wonderful.
This movie also does a wonderful job of combining DC comics fun with a typical Scooby mystery. The mystery element is especially strong here. This mystery has quite a few plot twists and each one works great. Just when you think you know where this mystery is going, it has another twist on top of it. This is definitely one of the better Scooby mysteries in recent years. Yet as much as this mystery works as a Scooby mystery, it works just as well as a superhero story, perfectly using the vast world of DC heroes and villains to its advantage.
Director Cecilia Aranovich has worked with both the DC and the Scooby-Doo! characters before this. She had directed a few of the direct to video Scooby-Doo! movies before this (Scooby-Doo! and the Curse of the 13th Ghost (2019), Scooby-Doo: Return to Zombie Island (2019), Straight Outta Nowhere: Scooby-Doo! Meets Courage the Cowardly Dog (2021)). On the DC side she has directed various episodes of TV's DC Superhero Girls and some of the direct to video movies based off the show, as well as some episodes of Harley Quinn. This film marks the first Scooby-Doo movie written by T.K. O'Brian and I hope not his last.
This is a pure delight for both fans of Scooby-Doo and DC.
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