“Scoob!” is a reasonably charming new take on the “Scooby-Doo” franchise. It interestingly opens up the door for a wider Hanna-Barbera universe of films (something that has been done on tv with Hanna-Barbera for decades). It’s also vastly superior to the dreadful live-action “Scooby-Doo” films from the earlier 2000s.

Scooby-Doo (Frank Welker “Transformers: The Movie”) and Shaggy (Will Forte “MacGruber”) leave the rest of Mystery Inc. after Simon Cowell suggests the gang move forward without them. The two best buddies soon find themselves teamingup with Blue Falcon (Mark Wahlberg “Ted”) and Dynomutt to battle Dick Dastardly (Jason Isaacs “Event Horizon”). The rest of Mystery Inc. desperately try to find Scooby and Shaggy as the mystery takes them across the world.

The voice acting for Scooby-Doo is fine as its Frank Welker doing the voice as usual but I was not very impressed with the voice acting for either Shaggy or Fred (Zac Efron “Dirty Grandpa”). Scooby, Shaggy, Daphne and Velma are all written well but Fred is really bland. The best characters though are Blue Falcon and Dick Dastardly. Captain Caveman (Tracy Morgan “Cop Out”) also appears. It’s great seeing all the characters together. Maybe we’ll see Top Cat in a sequel. I don’t get why Simon Cowell has to be here.

Some of the jokes are really funny (the one about Judge Judy is great). I loved all the little references to other Hanna-Barbera creations too. Some of the gags fall flat and some might be disappointed that the story does not really follow the convention of a “Scooby-Doo” episode or movie. The animation is actually fairly good. It’s not a great movie but I did enjoy “Scoob!” and I think both kids and adults will have some fun with it. I’m not the biggest “Scooby-Doo” fan but I was satisfied with what is on offer here.