It’s time for the next Scooby Doo adventure! The franchise has always been pretty fun and it’s good to see that it is powering along. The films won’t be stopping anytime soon so the Mystery Gang can continue to prove that they are the best in the biz. This one features some famous wrestlers as well, but will they be of help to the gang..or a hindrance!? It’s going to take everything that Scooby Doo has and more if he wants to save the day!
The film opens with a poor jogger getting attacked by a monster. He puts up a fight, but he’s definitely outmatched. Can this monster actually be real!? Meanwhile, Shaggy and Scooby Doo win a contest by completing their favorite wrestling game. They can now travel to WWE city and show the world what it means to be a fan. The rest of the gang is coerced into coming along via black mail. Unfortunately, they find out about the bear incidents that have been occurring in town. They quickly band together to solve the mystery, but the stakes are high. WWE’s reputation could be tarnished forever if the bear shows up during their big event. It’s a good thing that Fred’s always prepared.
It’s definitely interesting to have real people in the film aside from Scooby and friends. Because of that, there are actually live action segments in the opening credits! I have to say that the opening was one of the best ones that we’ve seen in Scooby Doo though. The song was pretty catchy and the explosion began things off on a good note. After that, it was time to get ready for the mystery. So, quickly I shall talk about each of the main characters and also about the suspects.
Scooby Doo is basically the main character of this adventure. We already know that he’s the heart of the Mystery Inc, but we find out that he’s also the most talented wrestler in this film. His role is a little worse than usual though since he is basically a pawn in the grand scheme of things. Not a very flattering way to leave an impression eh? Let’s just say that Scooby Doo doesn’t have a lot of “strength of character” in this installment and he can’t outrun the other animals. His final fight scene almost helps to fix this, but it’s not handled as well as it could be in terms of courage. Scooby Doo is the heart of the team…but that’s not saying much.
Shaggy is also around of course and he’s basically here to get crushed by the big fighters. He gets insulted to his face at one point and he barely bats an eye. That’s a little disappointing for his fans. He’s very slow on the uptake and you can’t count on Shaggy to win the big fights. It was good to see him blackmail the others, but that was really his only hardcore scene.
Velma and Fred are basically non factors in this film. There was a good scene where Fred and Velma had to start backpedaling faster than Microsoft’s Xbox One policies when Shaggy brought out the blackmail. They definitely underestimated him and that’s not a mistake that you really want to make. At the end, we get a really generic scene where Velma becomes a huge wrestling fan and I’ll admit that it was a little sad to see. It was over the top. Daphne doesn’t do so well in this film. She becomes a little too friendly with John Cena and she forgets what Wrestling is really about. She forgot about the integrity of the sport and she also forgot to stay true ti herself and her anti wrestlingness. This was definitely one of her worst films and hopefully she steps it up from here on out.
John Cena is the main wrestler and he really looks good. He looks insanely good! The writers must have really loved his personality since he’s basically Superman in this film. He’s able to stop a giant rampaging bolder with ease. He’s always got his cell phone at the ready to accept the texts and quickly save the mystery gang. He thinks up plans on the fly like when he had to save the city from the EMP. He is portrayed to be a genius and the strongest human fighter out there. I’ll admit that he was definitely pretty awesome in this film. It goes without saying that he was the best character of the bunch.
Cookie is another one of the suspects. He’s the coach who trains all of the wrestlers and his leg was injured a long time ago during one of the matches. Because of this, he doesn’t want Ruben (Enter the next suspect) to become a wrestler. Ruben is a computer whiz, but he wants to be a wrestler and he’s sad that Cookie keeps trying to stop him. One of them’s going to have to give by the end and neither one of them wants to back down. They were both decent characters, but they were about as generic as they come. I slightly preferred Cookie to Ruben.
Time for the next two suspects. Kane is a wrestler from the old days who wants to get back into the ring. He doesn’t talk all that often, but his fists speak for him. He scares a lot of people along the way and he is a pretty mean individual. Mr. McMahon is the head honcho for the wrestling events and he always has a lot of gusto about him. He talks with pride and he seems to love the wrestling events. He’s a pretty reasonable guy and he is the one who brings the Mystery gang in on the action.
Sin Cara is my second favorite character and his design is pretty cool. It can be a little annoying to see that he doesn’t talk. Not that he can’t talk btw…he just refuses to do so. Luckily, he can talk through is dancing and (Super Indestructible) John Cena knows how to translate. Sin Cara has a lot of knowledge from the olden days and he’s a fighter, but he gets one shotted in his first fight with the bear. Luckily, he makes a comeback and he does much better in round 2. Sin Cara may lack John’s physical might, but he’s very quick and that works to his advantage.
Finally, AJ Lee and Ms. Richards round out the list of suspects. AJ Lee is your typical all star female wrestler who always wins and makes sure to verbally and physically pawn Shaggy and Scooby Doo. She never takes a loss on screen and she’s very confident. Could she be the monster? Ms. Richards doesn’t like the Mystery Gang and she’s in charge of security. She wishes that the gang wasn’t on the case and she’s confident in her tech. Nothing gets past her and she could lose her job if the bear attacks continue to occur.
The Fire Bear is one of the most intense monsters to be seen in the Scooby Doo franchise. Whoever it is, The Fire Bear has a good degree of super strength and speed. It actually knocked away a missile that Fred launched and it was able to take out several professional wrestlers even when they were teaming up. It’s the only being to ever give John Cena a good fight in the film and it kicked one fighter across a long distance. I became an instant fan of the monster!
I definitely enjoyed this film and it was one of the better Scooby Doo adventures. It had its problems of course, but it also succeeded in various ways. The soundtrack was probably the best in the series and it was pretty impressive. The theme that played before the fighters took the stage was like something out of Justice League and the opening credits were solid as well. You felt like you were going in to watch a theater film. The soundtrack definitely gets a 4/5 at the very least. It was limited, but effective.
The fights were also fun to watch. Of course, most of the blows were off screen and someone would quickly get in the way so we missed all of the elbow drops. It was still fun to see some high powered wrestling and it was pretty serious business. It was like playing an old PS1 game. The wrestler slowly picks up and opponent and you get a lot of lag before executing the move. The animation may have been choppy, but it was done in an intentional way that made it fun.
The animation is decent. It’s nothing special of course and you can’t really see much improvement compared to a few years ago. Anime from about 10 years ago can likely top it, but Scooby Doo isn’t about transcending its animation limits. It’s about having fun and the animation definitely isn’t bad.
One negative that I would have with the film is the fact that it does drag on a little bit at some points. The ironic part is that the dragged out moments all involve the gang trying to solve the mystery. I guess the wrestling part was just more interesting this time around. I tried to make the detective work more fun by making a guess based off of all the suspects. My early guess was Sin Cara..which may have been a little dicey. Nontheless, I had to stand by him!
It’s also a little sad to see Daphne being to obvious the whole time about her liking John Cena and Shaggy/Scooby Doo shouldn’t be so nervous anymore. They’ve been through a lot worse. Now, it’s for the sake of tradition and all, but I wouldn’t mind a little character development for these guys. Seeing them make the same mistakes over and over again can be a little sad.
Overall, This was a pretty good Scooby Doo film. It stays true to formula. The fighting scenes were surprisingly intense and we also got some Young Justice cameos. Don’t worry, if you miss it the first time, the film makes sure to keep on showing them until you can’t miss the scene! It was also good to see the video games finally get their props and the film was more enjoyable than most of the others. The food scenes may have lacked some heart and I’m not sure about the new scooby snacks, but seeing food is always fun anyway. I recommend this to any Scooby Doo fan and wrestling fans might like it as a nice homage to the show. John Cena definitely gets a lot of feats.
Overall 6/10
I’m sure that we were all thrilled to see Hollywood finally start to adapt the events of the Bible. It was long overdo. We’ve had many films about the Civil War and other big events and these deserve just as much screentime. On the other hand, many Christians were pretty skeptical since the trailer did look pretty suspect. Unfortunately, they were right to be wary of this film since it’s example of how the theater can try to make the Bible “mainstream” and inaccurate.
As you may have guessed, this is a Very loose adaption of the classic tale. In the Bible, God decides to wipe out most of the human race by having a flood appear on the Earth to wipe everything out. He tells Noah to build an ark. 2 of every animal would go on it along with Noah and his family. The story was not very long in the Bible, but it was a very significant event in history. After all, it was where God said that he would never end the world by flood again. The film takes that plot and adds tons of stuff to it while “fleshing out” the characters to make sure that they are all pretty unlikable.
Now, adapting the Bible is a tricky matter in itself. I’ll definitely admit to that. Some of the events can be pretty brutal and it can be tough to see all of the animals being sacrificed on screen from the old testament. That being said, everything that is contained within the Bible is there for a reason so it must be kept in. It’s tough for me to watch as a big animal lover and the events can be pretty violent. Still, it must never be changed as it can trick new believers and they can miss out. So, I may still have a tough time watching a faithful adaption, but at least I would be watching it as it was meant to be seen. Dragging out the tale of Noah to 2 hours would be tricky for anyone and keeping it completely accurate would be challenging. That being said, the film didn’t need to be over 2 hours and the writers could have consulted with Christian scholars and pastors to get a better consensus of how the film should go. It would be more work, but it would be worth it. It would have also been worth their while to have made the film only run for about an hour or an hour and a half instead of adding tons of plot elements. Where did the film go wrong? Just about everywhere.
We have “The Watchers” who are fallen angels that disobeyed God because they wanted to help the humans while God had already decreed that the descendants of Cain would have to live by the sweat of their brow. God punished them by merging them with the soil of the Earth so that they became rock creatures. Then, the humans betrayed them and destroyed most of The Watchers. The Watchers became angry with humankind and they fled to a rocky area. Well….do you remember any of that from the Bible? I certainly don’t and I read that saga pretty recently. The whole concept of The Watchers is something that I don’t like. Personally, I have always pictured the Angels to be humanoid and made of light. (The Watchers transform back into this form when they die so at least their natural form was more in line with my thoughts) Of course, we won’t really know until we go to Heaven and their forms may not be so easily comprehended. Nontheless, I don’t believe that a human could ever destroy one of them, even if they were cursed to walk the Earth. Ever. That’s simply not possible and a complete insult to them.
It should also be noted that the word God is never used. They just refer to him as “The Creator.” The way that the universe is formed also makes it seem like it was a natural occurrence. God created the light and then everything just formed on its own….yeah right. The film likely didn’t want to offend atheists by mentioning God, but then why are they even making this film? This is supposed to enlighten more people to the word of God and to be a good way for Christians to see the story. If the writers won’t go all the way in making this a true adaption of the story of Noah, then there is no point.
Noah is also a pale shadow of himself. His big moment involves….disobeying God. He believes that God wanted him to murder two babies (You can already see how insane this is right?) so he does everything in his power to destroy them until he is finally next to them. Then he tells God that he will not do it and he leaves. One of the characters tries to tell him that God actually wanted him to spare the babies and he made the right choice, but it was handled poorly. Noah basically ended up choosing his family over God. He definitely misinterpreted God’s message as destroying the babies was not what he was meant to do, but it would have been better if God had told him to stop.
Another thing that I didn’t like was that God never actually spoke to Noah. Noah got brief visions about people drowning and other things, but God never actually talked to him. In the Bible, God told him exactly how to make the Ark, down to the specific size specifications. Again, the general audience may have found that hard to believe, but it’s what happened so that’s what should have happened in the film. We can’t alter the facts just to make things more “believable.” God never explains the visions either and Noah does everything by his own interpretation. In the Bible, everything was made clear to Noah. In the film, they act as if God barely cares about what is transgressing and the angels are the only real proof that he exists. (There are some minor scenes like a flower growing and the flood of course, but not talking at all is not a good move on the film’s part)
Back to Noah himself. He mostly just went around beating everyone up as he got the Ark ready. This just wasn’t the Noah that I was expecting. Self defense is good and all, but having him murder a bunch of people in one of the opening scenes isn’t how his character portrayal should have started. We’re supposed to see that he is a good man in a corrupt world, but we never really see this. He seems to be just another villain as he tries to murder the infants.
You can tell that my experience with the film was pretty negative. It’s just hard not to take a few shots at the film when everything was so wrong. Want to know another big problem with the film? One of the villains actually breaks into the Ark. That definitely did not happen in the Bible and it undermines everything. The whole point was that God protected Noah and his family once they were in the ark. They had nothing to fear because they knew that God would keep them safe. Not in this version and the villain actually murders a few of the animals. There is seriously no justice in this film.
The film has a ton of unnecessary animal violence and it’s very gritty throughout. We see many people dying and injured on the ground as they cannot leave. One of the worst scenes is when Noah walks into the enemy city and witnesses slave auctions and merciless animal violence. Don’t worry, I can possibly top that with another scene. Perhaps it can’t top that last one in terms of terribleness, but it comes close. Noah’s son helps a girl to escape this place and she trips on one of the bear traps. Noah’s son calls for Noah to come and help. So…Noah grabs him and runs away as we see the girl get trampled to death by the incoming mob. Noah regrets nothing since he believes that everyone in the village is evil with no exceptions. No exceptions. After all, he believes that his family are the chosen ones that God has deemed to live so any new life must be destroyed. Hence, why the baby must die.
I could likely go on for a while, but you get the jist of it and this technically isn’t a review. Just know that Noah is a really bad film interpretation of the story and I definitely would not recommend it. God’s Not Dead is a perfect Christian movie to watch that is fictional, but tells a good story. Son of God also came out recently and I can assure you that it is a pretty faithful movie about Jesus. Let’s hope that Exodus will be better as it will be hard to be worse…..but I wouldn’t get my hopes too high. Even if this was just movie that didn’t adapt the Bible, it would have still been a pretty poor one and you can bet that my score for it would have been extremely low. This is a story of brutality and of a man who lived through the great flood, but there is nothing about God’s kindness or anything to really show that he is alive at all. In the end, I’d say that the film….sunk.
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