Sunday, October 11, 2020

LEGO Scooby-Doo! Haunted Hollywood (2016)

 

Despite Lego being in the title and the gimmick of everything being made of Legos, this movie would not be that different if it was an average Scooby-Doo! movie with no Legos. The use of Legos really only brings the film a few quick gags, and other than that this is your typical Scooby-Doo! movie. As Scooby-Doo! movies go this film ranks as about average. 

The humor is the best part of this movie and there are some very funny moments. The jokes range from very corny to really clever. Fred's becoming an obsessive director with a "brilliant artistic vision" is one of the best uses of Fred as a comic goofball (something that falls flat in a lot of other movies and TV episodes). Scooby and Shaggy are excellent here and their vow to give up Scooby Snacks and the awareness of them always being used as bait is quite funny. There are also some great references for fans of old scary movies. There is even an often talked about actor whose name is a parody of Boris Karloff but who is also a take off on Lon Chaney. There is no doubt that the filmmakers have a lot of respect for those old movies and that shines through here. 

The Mystery is simple and easy to solve and you will figure it out very quickly. On top of that the film feels like it could have worked better at a shorter running time as it can feel a little padded at times. It takes a little bit before the story gets started and the beginning even feels a lot like unnecessary padding at the time. Having monsters wreck the movies sets multiple times feels more than a little repetitive and so do some meetings between two characters about the same plot point. This really would have worked as a half hour TV special better than it did as a feature length movie. 

This is neither Scooby's finest hour nor his weakest. While I don't picture this being anyone's favorite Scooby movie, there is still a lot to enjoy about it. 

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