Touches You

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Released in 2004, "Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed" has the Mystery Inc. team taking on monsters from their past adventures brought to life by an evil masked figure. As with the first film, Matthew Lillard and Linda Cardellini shine as Shaggy and Velma. Freddy Prinze Jr. is pretty good as Fred while Sarah Michelle Gellar as Daphne doesn't quite fit the role, although she's likable and serviceable. I'm sure she got the part because of her popularity at the time. Seth Green and Peter Boyle have significant peripheral roles, as does Alicia Silverstone, who's a highlight but unfortunately underused. Whereas the first movie was shot on the east coast of Australia this sequel changes the locale to the Vancouver area of British Columbia. Of course, it's location is Coolsville in the story, wherever that's supposed to be. In any case, the extreme switch in locale changes the dynamics a bit. There also seems to be more emphasis on action and paying homage to the cartoon, which makes it marginally better than the first movie, for me anyway. Plus it emphasizes the obvious – that Velma is sexier than Daphne, at least with Cardellini as Velma and Gellar as Daphne. There are some worthwhile morals as well, like simply being yourself and not trying to be someone else. The film runs 93 minutes.GRADE: C+ or B- (5.5/10)

Now, I move on to the sequel to the 2002 film, SCOOBY-DOO 2: MONSTERS UNLEASHED.I mentioned in my previous film review for the first Scooby-Doo film that the film was negatively received by critics, but was a hit with audiences and made a profit of $275 million dollars against it's $84 million dollar budget.SCOOBY-DOO 2: MONSTERS UNLEASHED is the sequel to the first film once again directed by Raja Gosnell and written by James Gunn.The plot shows the Mystery Inc. investigating the plans of a masked villain who wants to control the city of Coolsville using a machine to create monsters.Unlike the first film, this film featured several of the monsters from the television series, including the Black Knight, the 10, 000 Volt Ghost, the Pterodactyl Ghost, the Miner 49er and Chickenstein.The story is amazing and I think the writer once again successfully translated this script into a film that I enjoyed. James Gunn did a really good job with the script and Raja Gosnell directed this movie brilliantly.The visual effects, costume and production designs are really great, especially the way they created the monsters and it was really amazing and the CGI on the monsters and Scooby-Doo is just freaking awesome.My favorite scene is when Daphne fights the Black Knight. That was really cool, especially for Sarah Michelle Gellar, who was on Buffy the Vampire Slayer during the filming of this movie.The acting is just incredible. The returning cast are really amazing this time around, I just wish they kept the deleted scenes in this movie and the film is just really amazing and fantastic. The music by David Newman is once again amazing. The newcomers are Seth Green, the late Peter Boyle, Tim Blake Nelson and Alicia Silverstone and they done really great performances.The special features is really amazing in this film. You have the deleted scenes, again with and without commentary, two music videos, how the visual effects creators made Scooby-Doo dance, an insider's tool of the making of this movie and the movie-making process with Scooby-Doo, a True Ghoul Hollywood Story, two games on this film and trailers for the other movies released by Warner Bros. include THE POLAR EXPRESS and HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN and I will review those.Overall, I give SCOOBY-DOO 2 a 9 out of 10, while the DVD's special features gets a 9 out of 10 as well.

Due to their illustrious accomplishments, the gang is invited as guests, at the grand opening of the Coolsville Museum of criminology, a masked man appears and wreaks havoc in the museum, stealing the costumes of the gang's notorious criminals. There are many culprits and suspects for the gang to choose from, but they have their eyes set on their nemesis, Jonathan Jacabo. A bitter news reporter Heather Jasper-Howe manages to coerce Fred into complete tomfoolery, making the gang look to be clueless. Shaggy and Scooby take responsibility for it all, vowing to become better detectives. Perhaps, it was because I didn't care for the first movie at all. I ended that movie feeling completely embittered as a huge Scooby fan. I managed to have some decent fun with this one, probably because my expectations were null. There is plenty of corny slapstick that is desperate for cheap laughs, but they manage to pull a lot of it off. How can you not at least chuckle at the antics of Shaggy and Scooby? The scene where they mess around with formulas was my favorite. I'm not that much of a stickler, it doesn't take much to entertain me. It was a bit of a switch this time around in attitude for the gang. In the first one, they are full of themselves and condescending for a bit. This one, there is doubt and a lack of confidence with them. It made for a nice change of pace from the first one. I've always preferred the confident, but humble version of the gang. Die-hard Scooby fans will get a huge kick out of seeing villains from the past from the cartoon show. We get to see Captain Cutler, Captain Redbeard, Miner 49er, among others. It was a neat little touch that had the fan-boy in me come out. Freddie Prinze Jr, is still a bit too stupid and condescending for my liking as Fred, but he was better in this one. He didn't bother me nearly as much as he did in the first one. Sarah Michelle Gellar looks amazing, putting her martial art skills she learned in BTVS, to good use. Matthew Lillard is epic as Shaggy once more, while Linda Cardellini is great as Velma, even throwing in a little love storyline with Seth Green (Seth was good, in case you were wondering) Peter Boyle is decent in his role, it was a bit of a throwaway part. Alicia Silverstone is gorgeous to look at, not much else to say. Overall, I had some fun. I kicked my brain to the curb, had low expectations, everything worked out fine. This is far from the ultimate Scooby movie, but this will do for now. 5.5/10

After the success of the first Scooby Doo movie, the same cast was collected to provide a sequel and this, too, worked well.Since the formula is much as before, there is little to add other than to say that the CGI was better than before. In particular, Scooby worked rather better and was incorporated with the background plates more smoothly.And it is also worth mentioning that Linda Cardellini gets an opportunity to change from Velma's boring sweater into a slinky red catsuit, following which she achieves the clever trick of managing to be very sexy and very funny at the same time.