Movie Review: Lego Scooby-Doo! Haunted Hollywood

Lego Scooby-Doo! Haunted Hollywood
Hanna-Barbera, Warner Bros. Animation, The Lego Group, USA, 2016. 

Scooby-Dooby Doo!

Talking dog Scooby-Doo and his friends solve the mystery of sea creature. Shaggy and Scooby decide that they will not agree being monster baits for the price of Scooby Snacks again. But they must still eat and so always hungry Shaggy and Scooby-Doo visit a hamburger bar. Winning the eating contest earns tickets to Hollywood tour for the whole gang.

Shaggy and Scooby-Doo

Daphne, Fred & Velma

Famous monster film producing Brickton Studios is on the rocks as no one likes horror movies anymore. People only watch sappy romantic comedies. When the horror star Boris Carnac, the Man of 999 Faces, died the studios couldn't produce another hit movie. Mr. Brickton is thinking about selling his studios to businessman Atticus Fink. Horror-fan & tour-guide Junior is currently the only employee of the studios.

Mr. Brickton

Junior

Headless Horseman is scaring the tourists. Late night horror show hostess Drella Diabolique (voiced by horror icon Elvira herself a.k.a Cassandra Peterson) suspects that Carnac's horror characters have become alive. As monsters drive the filming crew away, Fred decides to direct a movie starring Shaggy and Drella. Daphne yearns for Oscars and tries to learn how to be an actress too.

Drella Diabolique

Looking cool

Mummy needs a dentist

It feels that in Finland Scooby-Doo has never gained as much popularity as in USA, and of the Hanna-Barbera productions more popular characters in Finland have been Yogi-Bear and The Flintstones, perhaps Top-Cat too. Maybe the younger generations know Scooby and his friends better from direct to video movies (rather than from the original TV-series) that are also sometimes shown in TV. Still I remember reading some Scooby-Doo comics in 1980s (can't remember if it was Scooby's own comic book or a Hanna-Barbera- compilation album). Lego's version is is a solid episode of Scooby-Doo with Lego-humour but does not invent the wheel again so for fans of Scooby-Doo this is quite familiar stuff. What's nice is that it has light tribute to Boris Karloff and old horror movies in general. It also parodies the naming conventions of movie sequels.

I would watch this

That awkward moment when a zombie is haunting your airplane

Rating: Good

Voice actors: Frank Welker, Matthew Lillard, Grey DeLisle, Kate Micucci, Dee Bradley Baker, JB Blanc, Christian Lanz, Scott Menville, Cassandra Peterson, James Arnold Taylor
Director: Rick Morales

As usual this Lego-movie has some nice extras.

Lego Scooby-Doo: Knight Time Terror

Warner Bros. Animation, The LEGO Group, USA, 2015.

The Scooby-gang visits a castle that is rumoured to be haunted. There is a treasure hidden too. The haunting is a gimmick to attract tourists but there is also Cursed Armour of Black Knight that begins to haunt the treasure hunters. The Grimsley-siblings would like to find the treasure of their greatgreatgrandfather but the house is full of traps. Always hungry Scooby and Shaggy also lose their sandwiches to a meat-eating plant.

There goes my lunch

Voice actors: Grey DeLisle, Matthew Lillard, Kate Micucci, Phil Morris, Colleen O'Shaughnessey, Sean Schemmel, Jason Spisak, Frank Welker
Director: Rick Morales

Also two vintage animations that inspired couple of characters of the main story are included.

Scooby-Doo! The Headless Horseman of Halloween (1976)

The headless horseman terrorizes a Halloween party. Scooby-Doo's cousin Scooby-Dum helps the detectives although he is not the sharpest tool in the shed.

Scooby-Dum

What's New Scooby-Doo? Fright House of a Lighthouse (2004)
Mystery Inc. visits a lighthouse where a treasure is hidden. Ghost of the evil lighthouse keeper keeps the tourists away. Another detective and underwear entrepreuner Verona Dempsey is already on the case which annoys Velma.

Now that was quite random

What is normal for the spider is chaos for the fly

Comparing these two episodes from different eras shows that the basic idea of the show has remained the same. There is a mystery involving a ghost and a treasure, the ghost is always some villain with a mask and Scooby and Shaggy eat a lot of food. Overall the DVD is a nice package for Scooby-fans.

Movie Review: Monster High: Welcome to Monster High

Monster High: Welcome to Monster High
Mattel Creations, USA, 2016.

Draculaura lives in an old castle with his dad Dracula. Humans must not see the monsters because humans are dangerous. One evening Frankie Stein comes to search for friends and  knocks at their door. Together the girls decide to find more monster friends who have gone hiding in different parts of the world. After recruiting Clawdeen Wolf, Lagoona Blue and Cleo de Nile thre girls decide to start a school for monsters with Dracula as their teacher. Also the school's lunch lady is recruited at some point, but compared to the original series her character is now fused with the tentacle thing from the old series. (Another example of character fusion: Draculaura now has a pet spider that looks the same as Operetta's spider in the old series).

Dracula and Draculaura

Umm..ok.

The school grows with student recruitment campaign. Zombie girl Moanica is a bad apple and wants to take back the world from the normies with her zomboy army. Frankie and Draculaura run for the presidency of the school and want to develop normie relations diplomatically and there a help from a normie pop star Tash would be needed. But also Moanica runs for the president too and has sinister plans. New character ghost Ari Huntington is introduced.

Cleo, Lagoona and Clawdeen

Raythe and Deuce hanging out with skeleton guys

Moanica

After Mattel losed the Disney Princess license to Hasbro, they tried to lure princess fans by making the Monster High dolls and animations more cute and girly. The characters were redesigned with more Frozen-style looks and some cute or weird critters were added. Basically this is what a Barbie version of "Hotel Transylvania" would look like. In fact even some of the new Barbie-movie covers have the Frozen-style face models. But the redesigns soon start the feel like the least of the problems.

Speaking of Barbie it is ironical that Barbie-director William Lau directed some of the MH-films (even some of the best ones), but managed keeping the styles of the two franchises distinctive so kudos for that. Here the new crew couldn't. Of the three directors or three writers of the story only Jun Falkenstein and Shane Amsterdam had previously worked in a Monster High production (both in "Great Scarrier Reef"). Writer/producer/director Audu Paden (who had a huge impact in the style of the original series) was not involved with this production (and neither are the characters voiced by him included). Also MH-producer Ira Singerman was not involved. And although I don't like MH resembling a Barbie-production it doesn't mean that they wouldn't be entertaining (I'm just outside the intended audience) but it would not be great if the two franchises became too similar.

Zomboys

Spot Venus in the low left corner

Ari Hauntington

Many fans were disappointed by this movie and it is easy to see why. I am outside the target audience but it was disrespectful to the fans of the franchise that the MH-world was altered so radically. I think the makers failed by scrapping large parts of the old Monster High lore and at the same time trying to please the old fans by including some popular characters from the old series. We have characters that were introduced only in the later run of the series (Venus and Twyla) while we are missing Ghoulia, Gil, Manny, Scarah and Heath who have been around since early episodes? The Wolf-family is missing Clawd and Clawdia. Abbey's absence at still point is still acceptable as she was introduced near end of the second season of the webisodes. Troublingly Frankie has inherited some of Ghoulia's hacking skills so was their original intention to ditch the character entirely? However Mattel seems to have acknowledged the backlash of Ghoulia's fans and there are some rumours floating around the web that Ghoulia will return. After all tech-savvy characters like Ghoulia and Robecca were characters that could inspire girls to pursue science or engineering careers.

And where are the original teachers Mr. Rotter, Headmistress Bloodgood, and Mr. Hack? In the original series the school was at least two hundreds of years old with at least Mr. Rotter being a former student so his inclusion would have been conflicting with the new storyline. In the new movie the school was founded by Draculaura and Frankie in Dracula's house. This also ruins the whole Robecca Steam storyline. Although the original continuity was not perfect there was nothing that was nothing that was too serious. There were inaccuracies in the originals as it seems that the lore and MH-world were created as needed when the show went on, but the webisodes and the movies felt like part of the same continuity: the new characters would appear in later films (if only as background characters but still) and the characters would refer to the events of the previous adventures. Why to junk the old continuity if there wasn't anything fundamentally wrong?

Another problem is that MH was never very action-focused (there were chase scenes though) but now the girls resemble more Charlie's Angels throwing zomboy-enemies around. Draculaura gets her vampire powers early in the beginning. In the original series Draculaura gained her vampire powers (turning into a bat) only in the later films and only after a considerable effort. Now all of the main monsters have stronger super powers and Cleo can tie up enemies with mummy wrappings. Also the personalities of the characters feel different: cool dude Deuce Gorgon looks scrawnier and hides from the normies in the shadows and mean cat Toralei feels domesticated. Zombies are menacing whereas in the original series they were generally nice but dim-witted folks. Contrastingly to the sugary style, Moanica feels like the most sinister villain of the franchise.

The story feels lacking the things that were fun in the original steering the franchise to more generic girls-toy tie-in. There are some annoying plotholes and fallacies and events that do not make any sense. If Dracula has an amulet that can find other monsters why haven't he and Draculaura used it before to find new friends? And if there is Internet for monsters how was it built if the monsters are hiding in secluded places? And what's with vampires suddenly loving sunlight (although they were more sun-resistant in the original series than in the common vampire lore, they still needed sunscreens or parasols to avoid sunburn).

If there was something good, it was the way Clawdeen, Lagoona and Cleo were introduced. Also some of the jokes were faithful to the old MH-style.

Contains one episode of "Ever After High" (interestingly the possiblility of MH/EAH crossover was hinted in "Boo York" but with the reboot it now seems unlikely).

Dragon Games Part I Shatter the Mirror
Raven gets to meet he evil mother who is locked inside a mirror. Apple's mother Snow White is concerned that Raven is more popular than Apple. Apple frees the Evil Queen who disquises as a new student. Raven's pet dragon Nevermore senses danger in the new student. Another dragon gets dragon babies and Snow White opens Dragon Games.

Raven and Apple

Businesswoman Snow White

Rating: Bad

Voice actors: Debi Derryberry, Cassandra Morris, Salli Saffioti, Larissa Gallagher, Cristina Milizia, Michael Sorich, Jonquil Goode, Travis Dresden, Evan Smith, Sara Cravens, Cam Clarke, Julie Maddalena, Jun Falkenstein, Ben Diskin, Max Mitchell, Spike Spencer, Hippo Cabal, Tarra Layne
Directors: Stephen Donnelly, Olly Reid, Jun Falkenstein

Movie Review: Monster High: Great Scarrier Reef

Monster High: Great Scarrier Reef
Mattel Playground Productions, USA, 2016.

Thirteen is a number of ill omen and with the thirteenth film the original run of Monster High series also ended and the next one was a reboot. 

The ghoul friends are practising a dance number under direction of Toralei(!). Toralei's choreography resembles what I look like when I'm dancing. Lagoona Blue is a great dancer but she has a serious stage fright making her freeze when there is an audience. After Toralei makes Lagoona's misfortune a meme, the feud between them intensifies. 

Lagoona

Dancing lesson

Freeze!

Usually friendly Lagoona gets angry and does the unthinkable. Lagoona uninvites Toralei from her own aftershow party. The energy of the fight opens a portal in the swimming pool and a group of ghouls get sucked in. Draculaura, Toralei, Lagoona, Clawdeen and Gil wake up as mermaids. Poseidon's daughter Posey invited them to help Lagoona to overcome her fears.

Party Party!

Fish friends

Kala Mer'ri

Lagoona's former friend and nowadays nemesis Kala Mer'ri humiliates Lagoona again in a dance contest. (In addition to the obvious Calamari-pun, the name is funny for the Finnish: kala means fish and meri means sea so her name would be "Fish Sea") Kala has a two-headed friend Peri (nice) / Pearl (naughty) and the nicer head feels sympathy for Lagoona. In the undersea town the fish ghouls meet Lagoona's family and her dad, the Creature from the Black Lagoon. For some weird reason Lagoona's accent sounds more Scottish than Australian.

Peri and Pearl

Lagoona's dad Wade

Posey likes dramatic announcements

Lagoona must meet her deepest fear to be able to return home. Does it mean facing the scariest monster of the deep,  the Kraken, is enough? (Hint: no).

Kraken

What is interesting is that the first trailer had a completely different premise. The original trailer had Lagoona getting a driver's licence and the friends going for a submarine ride. It feels that the script went through some serious rewrites.

After "Boo York" this seems to have had a lower budget and the reboot was already looming. As Audu Paden was increasingly more involved with Ever After High series, his involvement with this story was probably minor. This one has some inconsistencies compared to previous films or webseries and Lagoona's stage fright seems out of character. The lack of Audu Paden begins to show how much his ideas contributed to the original Monster High series. With the new people in charge the story doesn't flow so smoothly and the ending leaves quite a many loose ends and plot holes. For this film also Lagoona's voice actor was changed from Laura Bailey to Larissa Gallagher and the new voice actress continued with the reboot.

The story has a message of anti-bullying (common theme in the series) and message of accepting one's flaws so it is more of the same and that's ok. It has some entertaining parts and it is not totally bad but lacks something compared to the previous episodes.

There is an edited episode of Ever After High included.

Way Too Wonderland
There is something wrong in  Wonderland and Ever After Highers try to find a way to get there.

Rating:Average

Voice actors: Larissa Gallagher, Kate Higgins, Debi Derryberry, Salli Saffioti, America Young, Evan Smith, Lyndsy Kail, Rachel Staman, Cherami Leigh, Paula Rhodes, Piotr Michael, Erin Fitzgerald, Cam Clarke, Marcus Griffin, Audu Paden, Cindy Robinson, Julie Maddalena
Directors: William Lau, Jun Falkenstein

Movie Review: Monster High: Boo York, Boo York

Monster High: Boo York, Boo York a.k.a Boo York, Boo York: A Monsterrific Musical
Mattel Playground Productions, DHX. Media, USA, 2015.

Famous pop star Catty Noir suffers from artist's block. She put her career on hold and began studying at Monster High. Cleo de Nile's father mummy Ramses is taking his family to fancy gala Night of the Comet in Boo York City. The comet appears once in 1300 years. Although Cleo's boyfriend Deuce Gorgon is every one's pal and a cool dude, his laid back style does not impress Ramses (he didn't like Deuce in "Ghouls Rule" either). 

Deuce and Cleo

But Ramses has more in mind than just a party and star gazing. Ramses and Cleo's sister Nefera want a piece of the comet so they could rule the world. They plan to build a dynasty and fix a marriage between Cleo and masked Seth Ptolemy who comes from another wealthy mummy-family. Seth loves poetry but her mother doesn't (oh those youngsters and their hippity-hop music). And neither Cleo has patience for sappy poems.

De Nile family

Ghoul friends Draculaura, Cleo, Clawdeen, Frankie and Operetta go shopping and meet Boo Yorkians robot DJ Elle Eedee, socialite Mousecedes King and superstar wannabe Luna Mothews. Goth moth Luna looks a bit like Nina Hagen or Liza Minnelli. Naughty Toralei teams up with with Nefera. They are up to no good.

Luna Mothews

Mousecedes King

Toralei and Nefera

The scheming of Ramses and Nefera causes Deuce and Cleo to break up. Oh noes, is this the end of the romance of the Millennium? Gloom. Despite being heart-broken, Cleo has to show a happy face at the gala as a real ruler would do.

Boo York

Elle Eedee

Meanwhile Catty meets a parkourer rapper Pharaoh who shares her musical passion (who might it be, WHO MIGHT IT BE! MH-movies have never been skilled in keeping the secret identities secret). Ghoulia and Abbey find out that a comet is about to hit the city. But is it a comet or a space ship? Anyways they must find a way to stop the scaremageddon. It was nice that funny yeti Abbey who had been sidelined for three previous films got some more screen time here.

Catty & Pharaoh

Abbey and Ghoulia

Speaking of Abbey and Ghoulia, for some time ago (when I didn't yet know much about Monster High) I picked up some used mascot toys (five toys for one Euro), and much to my surprise two of them were rag dolls based on two of my favourite characters from this series: Ghoulia Yelps and Abbey Bominable. Cool!

There were some familiar looking backgrounders. Eyeball guy Eyera's relatives seem to live in Boo Your City. One of them is married to a cyclops girl (they have a weird tentacle baby too) Yup, the Eyeball folks seem to be influential in Boo York City as several of them are invited to de Nile's party. The character design of Lilith Van Hellscream was reincarnated here as a dark haired character appearing at Ptolemy's party.

Eyeball family

Lilith doppelgänger. Also the wolf guy has twins in the city

In every long running series there comes a space themed adventure and usually a musically themed episode. This movie combines them both. Although the story keeps the ghouls on Earth, it introduces a new alien character named Astranova. And if the series wouldn't have rebooted we would probably have seen crossover of Monster High and Ever After High. At least the ending hints that way.

Deuce is back

Astranova

As in "Monster High: Scaris: City of Frights" the monsters leave their familiar territory and explore a new colourful city finding new friends. Together with "Scaris", "Frights, Camera, Action" and "Freaky Fusion" this probably was one of the bigger budget  original generation MH-movies. The four films have the highest production values, and in my opinion they are the best of the series (not forgetting "13 Wishes." The soundtrack is urban style rap & r&b with couple of songs actually quite good with some dramatical duets. Nothing to complain here, the fans will get what they expect although the story goes a familiar path.

Three episodes of Mattel's newer toy series "Ever After High" are included:

Raven's Tales
Everyone is counting on that the fairy tale characters follow their destiny. But Raven Queen does not want to be evil.

Apple's Tales
Apple White is over enthustically arranging things so that her fairy tale would become true. This includes making sure that Raven will become evil.

The Tale of Legacy Day
Raven goes to ask Giles Grimm if her story will diseappear if she doesn't follow her destiny.

Rating: Good

Voice actors: Karen Strassman, Salli Saffioti, Wendee Lee, TJ Smith, America Young, Rachel Staman, Laura Bailey, Lauren Weisman, Erin Fitzgerald, Kate Higgins, Cindy Robinson, Debi Derryberry, Audu Paden, Cam Clarke, Evan Smith, Jonquil Goode, Todd Haberkorn, Missi Hale

Director: William Lau