SCOOBY-DOO: THE SWORD AND THE SCOOB (2021)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

THE SWORD AND THE SCOOB is a modestly engaging twist on Mark Twain's "Connecticut Yankee" formula. For no particular reason, the Scooby Gang-members decide that they're curious about Shaggy's English ancestry, and a fellow who benefited from the teens' mystery-solving efforts makes the journey possible.

The teens seek out the small village where Shaggy's ancestors originated. Not only is this village rumored to be the original site where the legendary Camelot stood in medieval times, there's a legend that an obscure knight preserved King Arthur's reign by saving the kingdom from the evil sorceress Morgan LeFay. Most of the kids are just concerned with seeing the sights (and, in the case of Shaggy and Scooby, with gorging themselves on British food), but Velma is particularly obnoxious about dismissing the ancient legends.

Then Morgan LeFay shows up, flying about and hurling bolts of magical force, and for good measure she hurls the Scooby Gang back to ancient England. There they see the village in its salad days, complete with the castle of Camelot and the reign of Arthur. The Gang becomes convinced that Shaggy is destined to act the part of the savior-knight, but they have to convince Arthur of that. (Arthur, voiced by Jason Isaacs, talks like a modern dude who throws the occasional "thee" into his speech.)

Unfortunately, the sword Excalibur happens to be re-imbedded in a rock inside the castle, and Shaggy thoughtlessly pulls it. To save themselves from Arthur's wrath, the teens agree to fight in a tournament-- except for Velma. She goes off to study magic with the wizard Merlin, hoping to find that he's some sort of future-scientist who might have a time machine that can get the Scoobies back home. After the film burns up about half an hour with the tournament and the tutelage, the contemporary version of Morgana shows up and spirits Shaggy away, forcing Arthur and the Scoobies to team up against the evil witch.

Then comes the twist: Velma belatedly works out that there was no time-travel; the whole village cooperated to erect a fake Camelot and dress in medieval garb. The wonky script tries to get around the fact that the villagers had no way of knowing the Scoobies were coming by saying that the locals sought to manufacture an "immersive experience of Camelot" in order to make their burg over into a major tourist-site. This still doesn't work, since so many factors of the play-acting still would have had to be worked out way in advance-- particularly Morgana, with various mechanical contrivances to explain her flight and her spells. (Just so the movie can have a villain, the character playing Morgana does have an Ulterior Motive.) Still, this would be one of the few Scooby movies where the nature of the phony metaphenomenality would be uncanny. Of course the presence of the talking dog by itself renders the movie marvelous, and for good measure there's a strong suggestion that Merlin alone is the real thing.

This is mostly an average effort, with one exception: Daphne gets even stronger fight-action here than she did in SCOOBY DOO AND THE SAMURAI SWORD. At the same time, she's not morphed into the sort of arrogant "girl boss" type one sees in MCU movies, even though she does take out most of the (phony) Knights of the Round Table with her mad martial skills. For the past ten years or so, a fair number of these DTV films have given Daphne, originally a rather blank "the girl" figure, a rather trippy personality uniquely her own, which might be the best thing about the current crop of Scooby-fodder.