Scooby Doo

I had a good time with "Scooby Doo". All of the principal actors nailed their parts well enough to make me forget they were actors, but just characters inspired from the zany cartoon.

Matthew Lilliard does an amazing impression of Kasey Kasem doing Shaggy.

Linda Cardellini was good as Thelma (though I didn't quite remember Thelma as having such a large rack in the cartoons ). Sarah Michelle Geller and Freddie Prinze Jr. were actually the weaker players in this film, but not distractingly so.

Now the CGI Scooby Doo was actually pretty entertaining to watch, the mannerisms and the vocal patterns were spot on, and it was good to see him treated in a good fashion in his big screen debut. The only problem with the CGI was that Scooby tended to be a bit on the bright side in the light rendering aspect of the CGI in use (the shading was off in terms of light sources), which made Scooby sort of stick out in some of his scenes, but once you get into the film, and are just enjoying Scooby's interaction with the rest of the cast, and his facial/body expressions (which are a hoot IMHO), those objections quickly fade away.

The plot was a standard plot, but it was serviceable, and will easily lend itself to future sequels because this film will be a hit, and it will have legs at the box office because it's fast-paced, and the characters are pretty much like the characters from the cartoon, and Scooby's pretty funny
in the film. There's a good "joyous" vibe to this film that will put a smile on your face.

I give it 3 stars, or a grade of B.