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STUDIO: Warner Bros.
MSRP: $24.98
RATED: Unrated
RUNNING TIME: 75 Minutes
SPECIAL FEATURES:
• National Geographic’s Scooby-Doo: Curse of the Lost Lunch
• Scooby-Doo Rap Music Video
• Deleted Scenes
• Voice Actor Featurette
• Escape From the Ankh Chamber Game
The Pitch
"Okay guys, where have Scooby & the Gang NOT been yet?" "OZ!" "HELL!" "EGYPT!" "Ummm..okay so we’ll be going with Egypt. Although, that Hell idea…ya never know…"
The Humans
Virginia Madsen, Oded Fehr, Casey Casem, Jeremy Piven, Christine Baranski and Ron Perlman (Those are the bigger names, anyway)
At 5’1", walking tall wasn’t really an option, but he sure as hell had the other part figured out.
The Nutshell
Velma helps some Egyptian Prince on an cleanup project at The Sphinx when she finds a magic necklace which attracts tomb raiders, who just happen to unlease a 3000 year old curse. It’s always a curse with these Egyptians.
The Package
The cover art isn’t very good. Which is a shame because you can tell the artist put some effort into it. Floating Scooby and Shaggy heads with some Undead Army Mummies and an image of The Sphinx. It’s shiny and vibrant but dull and lacking imagination. Same can be said for both the audio and the video. The animation and art are clearly digital which makes one wonder why they didn’t try to up the ante on some of the non-magical sequences. Considering the technology they must have had at their disposal it sort of seems like a waste. There’s a Dolby 5.1 track and it’s used rather effectively, mainly because of the sound effects found in the scenes involving magic.
Fred and Daphne were so ready for some alone-time they did everything they could to get away from poor Velma…
When it comes to features, this is a fairly loaded disc, especially when compared to a lot of stuff that gets released nowadays. The only problem is that what they included won’t really enhance the viewing experience and if watched it all, they probably won’t be watched more than once.
The Lowdown
Well, in case anyone’s wondering, this isn’t a return to the original charm, quality and overall grooviness of the original series and movies. Here’s the problem I have with these newer movies – they try too hard. With the original series you knew it was Old Man Withers in a mask and the writers knew you knew. And even though they would do little things to try and make you believe otherwise, they didn’t employ any trick or tactic that wasn’t very reasonably explained away when the gang solved the case. In this particular effort, the emphasis is on Cleopatra’s curse and between the prologue, the tomb and every magical setback that befalls our heroes, you honestly don’t expect an "And I would’ve gotten away with it…" at the end. But of course, this is a Scooby-Doo movie, and of course you can’t have a Scooby-Doo Movie unless the gang solves the case, and of course there’s nothing to solve if it actually IS magic. So in the end it’s another man in the mask story.
…but it turned out Fred wasn’t really up to it after all.
The only problem with that is that they spent the previous hour trying their damndest to convince you otherwise. And in fact, they tried so hard they made it impossible to explain everything away. Actually, once the big secret is revealed, there are at least 5 scenes in the movie that make absolutely no sense when applied to the revelation. And it also bears to mention that the character who gets to say the famous Line of the Defeated is actually involved in a rather ridiculous sub-plot and the Man-in-the-Mask of the main story isn’t at all who you would expect.
This wouldn’t be bad at all if it was a random cartoon about Egyptology, as the story itself is very intriguing and it is pretty accurate in it’s representation of the traditional Egyptian customs and history. The fact that they cast it with Mystery, Inc and then proceed to piss all over those traditional customs and history are what make this (and well – pretty much all of these New Scooby Movies) hard to watch.
Shaggy tries his hand at national defense in the new DTV movie, Scooby-Doo Meets the Taliban.
Your kid will dig it, no doubt, but if you really want to give them some Scooby Exposure, invest in the Golden Collection Sets. They’ll thank you later.
5.0 out of 10