PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: (1) *fair,* (2) *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *psychological*
For some reason the box-office success of the 1995 CASPER only resulted in two DTV "prequels" and a TV cartoon show. I believe that I may have seen the first prequel, CASPER: A SPIRITED BEGINNING, but I don't remember it, and I would assume nothing about it impacts the second and last sequel, in which the friendly ghost meets his bosom friend from the funnybooks, Wendy the Good Little Witch (as essayed by an eleven-year-old Hilary Duff).
Casper, a creation of cartoon shorts, didn't start out having three mean "uncles," The Ghostly Trio, forever making his unlife miserable. However, when Wendy was created in a 1954 Harvey Comic, she was conspicuously modeled upon Casper's set-up. Thus Wendy was raised by three mean witch-sisters, whom she addresses as her "aunties," even though by one account they're no more related to the good little witch than Casper's uncles are to the Friendly Ghost.
Scripter Jymm Magon exploits the similarities between the two kid-protagonists and their naughty guardians for all it's worth here. First he supplies a simple but comically ruthless protagonist, Desmond Spellman (George Hamilton), a warlock who knows that Wendy is fated to out-witch him if she ever reaches her mature years. So Desmond creates two minions (played by Richard Moll and Vincent Schiavelli, who have pretty good chemistry) and sends them to snuff out Wendy and her family. Wendy and her aunts (Shelley Duvall, Teri Garr and Cathy Moriarty) escape, but the aunts decide that the only way to preserve their lives is to "get off the grid," taking up residence at a holiday resort and refraining from the use of magic, so that their adversary can't track them.
By the fiat of writerly coincidence, Casper's obstreperous uncles decide they want to take a vacation at the same resort, and they drag Casper along. Casper gets the best of the deal, for he meets and befriends Wendy, despite the long standing rule that ghosts and witches hate each other. The two youngsters get the bright idea to trick their respective guardians into liking each other, so that Casper and Wendy can hang out without complications.
I won't dwell on all the comical complications that ensue, but I for one thought this film funnier than the original CASPER. Inevitably the bad magician homes in on his quarry, and witches and ghosts must predictably bury the hatchet to take down a greater foe. For a DTV film the FX are pretty good, and the principal actors all get their moments to shine without slowing down the plot. But the flick's best quality is the way it's true to the psychological appeal of the originals. Both Casper and Wendy are placed in the position where their "being good" makes them superior to their unprincipled elders, and the humor grows out of their struggles to be true to themselves despite such bad parental examples.
SCOOB! is a strange beast-- even stranger than the talking Great Dane for which it's named. If not for Covid closures, the computer-animated project would have been the third film in the franchise released to theatrical venues, following the live-action films from 2002 and 2004. In addition, Wikipedia asserts that the movie was supposed to use the Scooby Gang as a springboard to introduce "a cinematic universe based on Hanna-Barbera properties."
Later studio heads cancelled that idea, and it's quite possible that the original idea would have been a train wreck. But the final version of SCOOB is more like a train that just runs out of steam and goes nowhere.
The main plotline kept from the early scripts is that the Scooby Gang are attacked by robot minions of an unknown mastermind, only to be succored by a benign government organization, the Falcon Force. Possibly in the original conception, the Falcon Force would have included numerous entities from the H-B cosmos, perhaps anyone from Atom Ant to Zandor of the Herculoids. But as things stand, the only three agents in the organization seem to be the original Dyno-Mutt, the son of the Blue Falcon (the original has retired and makes no appearances here), and Dee Dee Sykes, one of the three hip young girls from the CAPTAIN CAVEMAN TV show.
The Scoobies pitch in to track down their attacker, who is none other than long time schemer Dick Dastardly. This proves to be the film's best conceit, for Dastardly, as voiced by Jason Isaacs, steals every scene he's in, and he makes a nice contrast to the lame villains who occupy most Scooby-tales. Unfortunately, the writers also decided to play up a meaningless quarrel between Shaggy and Scooby, when Shaggy feels left out thanks to the bonding of Scooby and Dyno-Mutt, the two of them being talking dogs of a feather. The Wiki-page for the film includes a quote from director Tony Cervone, asserting that they intentionally focused on the Shaggy-Scooby relationship. But not only does this stratagem leave the other three Scoobies with little to do, it's a false conflict, since every viewer knows the two will become fast friends again by film's end. Additionally, Dee Dee, Dyno-Mutt and the new Falcon are all extremely dull, and a brief guest-appearance of Captain Caveman-- IMO, one of H-B's worst creations-- does not improve the situation.
Dastardly is more impressive, particularly because he perpetually grieves for the loss of his estranged partner-in-crime, Muttley. However, his master plan, which involves using Scooby's DNA to access the treasure vault of Alexander the Great, leaves something to be desired, despite some nifty visuals of the vault itself.
I don't doubt that the writers and producers may felt a strong regard for the well-liked Scooby franchise. But the story didn't even come up to the level of a better-than-average DTV like HAPPY HALLOWEEN, SCOOBY DOO, and so I doubt a theatrical release would have done anything to improve the film's reputation.
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