Movie Review: Scooby Doo! Moon Monster Madness (2015)

The animated movie uses voices from Frank Welker, Mindy Cohn, Matthew Lillard, Diedrich Bader and Mark Hamill.

My wife had to work tonight and, as I usually do on nights she works, I planned a father/daughter movie night with my oldest daughter. The original plan was to watch the film "Dr. Cyclops" because it is one of her favorites. However, I remembered I recorded "Scooby Doo! Moon Monter Madness" the other day and, figuring it would be something her younger sister would watch with us, I picked that movie instead. Overall, I thought it was a good choice.

There were quite a few things I found I liked about this animated film. The main one had to be the good mix of entertaining characters that included everything from a talented professional football player (Kevin Michael Richardson) to an android (Bader) that didn't seem to know when to keep his mouth shut.

The mystery itself was also somewhat decent. It was hard to tell if the alien was a real one (and, given some of the other recent Scooby Doo movies, it was possible it was) or someone in costume. And, if it was the latter, there were quite a few potential suspects but no real motives, making the mystery a little harder to solve than many I've seen from this franchise (though I did actually end up figuring it out).

My only real complaint about this movie is it strayed from the proven Scooby Doo format and didn't have Mystery Incorporated spend a whole lot of time trying to collect clues. Instead, the movie focused more on the individual characters' quirks and the conflict between Daphne (Grey Griffin) and Velma (Cohn) over Daphne scoring the highest on the astronaut exam. The mystery, in all honesty, wasn't as much fun without the clues.

The movie also does tend to drag on, especially in the beginning. Part of the reason for this, I think, is because the writers did leave out the hunt for clues, something that usually fills a good portion of any Scooby Doo episode/film. But, a larger part of the reason was the fact a large chunk of this movie consisted of the Scooby Gang and other passengers walking around and exploring the ship/space station. It was as though the filmmakers wanted to focus on the fantastic animation (which was, admittedly, pretty good) and hope nobody noticed the lack of action.

I've seen most of the Scooby Doo movies that are available and this one definitely was not one of my favorites. However, it is still an OK film with some pretty solid animation and, because of that, it is worth watching with the kids at least once.

My Grade: B