Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Bigger, but not better

It is loaded with expensive CGI set-pieces, but this sequel only makes you long for the Gang’s good old animation days on TV instead

By Ong Sor Fern

SCOOBY DOO 2: MONSTERS UNLEASHED (PG)

95 minutes

Opens tomorrow

SCRIPTWRITERS, WHERE ARE YOU? : CGI Can’t Get It right, so the cast (from left) Gellar, Prinze, Lilliard and Cardellini have to fend for themselves. THIS movie presents an interesting conundrum for movie critics.

To judge Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed as an actual movie is unfair, since it is no more than a string of expensive CGI set-pieces set to instantly disposable pop music.

Yet, the presence of live actors, a big budget and a 95-minute running time seeks to convince one that this, indeed, is a feature movie.

Given the number of critically-drubbed animation-turned-into-live action features, including the first Scooby Doo, one would have thought a sequel would be moot.

Yet here we are confronted once again with the sight of a real-life Fred (Freddie Prinze Jr), Daphne (Sarah Michelle Gellar), Velma (Linda Cardellini) and Shaggy (Matthew Lilliard) interacting with a 1.8m-tall computer-generated Scooby (voiced by Neil Fanning).

The good news: This sequel actually has a skeletal plot that makes - barely - coherent linkages from one frenetic set-piece to the next.

It has something to do with the appearance of a new villain in Coolsville, who has invented a dastardly machine to re-animate old villains from the Scooby gang’s past.

The script attempts character development.

So Velma gets a nerdy suitor in the form of museum curator Patrick (Seth Green, Gellar’s Buffy The Vampire Slayer alumnus who really deserves better than this).

Shaggy gets insecure about his goofiness and vows to become a more useful member of the Gang. And Fred gets an attack of introspection that lasts all of one minute.

If you are under six years old, the antics of an animated cartoon come to expensive three-dimensional life will probably prove thrilling.

Beyond that demographic, the viewer will probably marvel at how live action can be flatter than two-dimensional drawings.

It would not be such a bad thing if this were not such a totally, shameless exercise in mercenary money-making.

Every action set-piece, with dizzying roller-coaster scenery zipping past, looks like a theme park/Xbox game in the making.

One full-length musical number dropped into the middle of the action is designed to showcase the determinedly radio-friendly hit-and-run single.

The bombastic CGI only makes one long for the uncomplicated, cheap animation of the cartoon.

The presence of a decent cast of actors only serves to show up the abysmal pointlessness of it all.

Lilliard, with his rubbery lankiness and gurgling voice, was born to play Shaggy and he imbues the character with enough goofy charm to be endearing.

Gellar’s Daphne is a diluted version of her spunky Buffy persona. When Daphne utters at one point, ’Quick, we need to think of a comeback’ but manages only a ’Hey, shut up!’, one cannot help but wish one is in the presence of that other much better-scripted Scooby gang from the TV show.

By the time the Velvet Teddy Bear himself, Reuben Studdard, shows up for his musical cameo, it is evident that this pre-engineered piece of pop piffle has long passed its sell-by date.