Scoob!

image for Scoob!

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Not suitable under 8; parental guidance to 10 (scary scenes, crude humour, coarse language and animated violence)

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This topic contains:

  • overall comments and recommendations
  • details of classification and consumer advice lines for Scoob!
  • a review of Scoob! completed by the Australian Council on Children and the Media (ACCM) on 24 July 2020.

Overall comments and recommendations

Children under 8 Not suitable due to scary scenes, animated violence, coarse language and mild crude humour.
Children aged 8–10 Parental guidance recommended due to scary scenes, animated violence, coarse language and mild crude humour.
Children over the age of 10 Ok for this age group.

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Australian Government Classification Board and the associated consumer advice lines. Other classification advice (OC) is provided where the Australian film classification is not available.

Name of movie: Scoob!
Classification: PG
Consumer advice lines: Mild supernatural themes, animated violence and coarse language
Length: 94 minutes

ACCM review

This review of the movie contains the following information:

A synopsis of the story

Scoob! is a modern animated reboot of the popular Hanna-Barbera cartoon, Scooby-Doo. The film tells the origin story of how Shaggy (voice of Iain Armitage), a lonely young boy, befriends a rag-tag, talking street dog and names him, ‘Scooby Dooby-Do’ (voice of Frank Welker). They become the best of friends and go everywhere together. One Halloween they go trick or treating with a bunch of other kids from the neighbourhood - Velma Dinkley (voice of Gina Rodriguez), Fred Jones (voice of Zac Efron) and Daphne Blake (voice of Amanda Seyfried) - and end up solving a spooky mystery together. From that moment on they are fast friends and form the mystery-solving gang, ‘Mystery Inc.’. Fast-forward ten years into the future and Mystery Inc. is seeking investment to expand their brand. They look to famous talent-finder and entrepreneur Simon Cowell (voice of Simon Cowell) but he will only invest in them if they ditch Shaggy (adult voiced by Will Forte) and Scooby, who he sees as worthless to the gang. Shaggy and Scooby leave them to it but they are very sad to be cast aside. To cheer themselves up they go to their favourite bowling alley, however things become strange when the bowling balls all transform into crazy little killing scorpion robots who chase the pair out into the alley. As Scooby and Shaggy try to outrun the mini robots, they are beamed up in a blue light tunnel to the aircraft of superhero, Blue Falcon (voice of Mark Wahlberg), his sidekick Dynomutt (voice of Ken Jeong) and the brains behind them and pilot of the ship, Dee Dee Skyes (voice of Kiersey Clemons). It turns out that wicked villain Dick Dastardly (voice of Jason Isaacs) wants to capture Scooby. An epic adventure follows; Scooby and Shaggy travel with the Blue Falcon gang, and Daphne, Velma and Fred hurry to find them so that together they can foil Dick Dastardly’s evil plans.

Themesinfo

Children and adolescents may react adversely at different ages to themes of crime, suicide, drug and alcohol dependence, death, serious illness, family breakdown, death or separation from a parent, animal distress or cruelty to animals, children as victims, natural disasters and racism. Occasionally reviews may also signal themes that some parents may simply wish to know about.

Friendship; Being excluded; Mystery and Supernatural; Heroes and Villains; Good versus Evil.

Use of violenceinfo

Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.

Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.

There is some violence in this movie including:

  • Fred throws an axe at the ghost/villain to try and stop it from attacking Daphne.
  • Dick Dastardly picks up one of his little robot pets, strokes it on the stomach like a cat, then rips its head off and throws it into the fire.
  • Shaggy and Scooby hit the robots over the head with mallets.
  • Blue Falcon says, “I can totally pound the crap out of this guy…it’s going to be my super hero moment”.
  • Dick Dastardly has a laser weapon that looks like a gun. He points it at people and threatens them.
  • Dick Dastardly hits his beloved pet over the head violently.

Material that may scare or disturb children

Under fiveinfo

Children under five are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children under the age of five, including the following:

  • The children enter a spooky, haunted old house. A ghost with glowing eyes is lurking in the closet. It jumps out and chases the children around.
  • Dick Dastardly has an army of small killer robots. They transform from quite cute little robots into scorpions with razor blades and rotating chainsaw arms, glowing red eyes and snapping jagged teeth. Many children will find these creatures very scary.
  • The villain Dick Dastardly is mean and quite an evil and monstrous looking character. There is one scene where he has chased and trapped Scooby inside a ‘house of mirrors’ in an old amusement park. His reflection is looming and glowing red on every mirrored surface.
  • One scene takes place in an old abandoned amusement park which has lots of broken and dangerous looking rides. Characters take a ride on a rollercoaster which has a broken section and go flying off. The Ferris wheel comes loose and roles across the ground.
  • Dick Dastardly stands beside two large skulls which light up and beams of light come streaming from the eye sockets.
  • A giant three headed dog (Cerberus) comes out of the underworld. He is ferocious and has glowing eyes, like a zombie dog. All three heads have snarling big teeth. Small children are likely to find this scene very scary.

Aged five to eightinfo

Children aged five to eight will also be frightened by scary visual images and will also be disturbed by depictions of the death of a parent, a child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes and scary visual images, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children aged five to eight, including the following:

  • There are some sad moments in this film that children in this age group might find emotional. For example, Shaggy is very upset when Scooby discards the collar that he had given him when they first met because Scooby needs to fit into his new super hero outfit.

Aged eight to thirteeninfo

Children aged eight to thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic threats and dangers, violence or threat of violence and / or stories in which children are hurt or threatened.

In addition to the above mentioned violent scenes, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children aged eight to thirteen, including the following:

  • Some children in this age group may still find some of the above-mentioned scenes quite scary.
  • Children in this age group are more likely to pick up on some of the adult jokes in this film.

Thirteen and overinfo

Children over the age of thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic physical harm or threats, molestation or sexual assault and / or threats from aliens or the occult.

Nothing further of concern.

Product placement

The following products are displayed or used in this movie:

  • Netflix
  • Ikea
  • Tinder.

Sexual references

There are some sexual references in this movie, including:

  • A woman is described as “hot”.
  • Fred is pulled over by a police woman. The woman is thin and blonde with an unrealistically tight police uniform on – Fred is stunned by her attractiveness and sexy music starts playing, in slow motion the police woman shakes her hair from side to side and Fred sees love hearts all around her.
  • Someone says to Blue Falcon, “You thought Tinder was an app that delivered firewood!”

Nudity and sexual activity

  • None noted.

Use of substances

  • None noted.

Coarse language

There is some coarse language and insults in this movie, including:

  • Dimwit
  • Imbeciles
  • Morons
  • Pin head
  • Boot licking suck up
  • Flatulent Fleabag
  • Crap
  • Dipstick
  • Pip squeak.
  • There is a scene where Dick Dastardly is frustrated when Scooby can’t pronounce his name and starts shouting “Dick” repeatedly and loudly. It is supposed to be funny because of the double entendre.

In a nutshell

Scoob! is a fast-paced animation with a confusing plot line and some cheesy humour. It may appeal to fans of the original Scooby-Doo cartoons or other Hanna-Barbera productions. Although the target audience is children between the ages of 6 and 10, there is a little too much violence, crude language and too many scary characters for those under 8. There is a dose of adult humour in this film, presumably to keep parents entertained, but it’s pretty clunky and might lead to unwanted questions (for example – are you ready to explain what ‘Tinder’ is?). On a positive note, there are some nice messages about friendship and the importance of being loyal; and Scooby is as goofy and adorable as you remember him.

The main messages from this movie are that friendships are worth fighting for and that there is strength in numbers.

Values in this movie that parents may wish to reinforce with their children include:

  • Loyalty to our friends.
  • Learning to value our friends, even when they are different from us. Everyone has something unique to offer.

This movie could also give parents the opportunity to discuss with their children attitudes and behaviours, and their real-life consequences, such as:

  • Scooby and Shaggy feel really bad when they are excluded from the Mystery Inc. gang – do you think that it was right that they were kicked out? Can you imagine how it might feel to be excluded and left out from your group of friends?
  • Do you think that superheroes need to use violence? Blue Falcon says he is going to be a hero by “pounding the crap” out of someone smaller than himself – do you think that makes him more of a hero?