Rating: ***
Review Date: 9/27/23
Cast: Frank Welker, Grey Griffin, Matthew Lillard, Kate Micucci,
Myrna Velasco
Mystery Inc. makes a shocking discovery when they realize that all of the costumes worn in their previous cases were made by the same company. Once they arrest costume designer Coco Diablo (Myrna Velasco) and put her out of business, Mystery Inc. runs out of cases to solve, which results in an existential crisis for the team. As fate would have it, a group of ghosts attack the gang at a Halloween Fair, and Mystery Inc. teams up with Diablo to solve the case. But can she be trusted?
It's a good-looking production and the animation is great, although as is often the case with the Scooby-Doo movies, the pacing drags and it probably should have been trimmed down to an hour. The biggest standout is Coco Diablo, who is a fantastic character. She is smart, sassy, and extremely sexy, with curves and jiggles in all the right places and an awesome pair of boots to top it off. Myrna Velasco's performance is pitch perfect, and really brings Coco to life with a playfully snarky and arrogant attitude. It's love at first sight for Velma, and Kate Micucci is allowed to break out of the box with her performance and inject more emotion into Velma's normally cold and stiff personality. The interplay between Coco and Velma is wonderful and is the main story driver. Fred's (Frank Welker) angst drives the beginning of the movie, but once there's a case to work on, he reverts back to his normal self. Shaggy and Scooby never change, and all they care about is going trick-or-treating. Once again, Daphne (Grey Griffin) is the wildcard, and the animators have trouble maintaining consistency with her character. The movie uses the same character models as "Scooby-Doo And Guess Who?" where Daphne's face looks weird and she has super thick thighs. It actually makes Velma look like the pretty one in the group, which is disappointing. However, a certain character revelation at the end brought tears to my eyes, which was a nice touch for the series. The music is good, and Sweet's "Ballroom Blitz" shows up during a chase scene, which came as a surprise.
Overall, I enjoyed this outing a lot, even though it goes off the rails at the end. The characters are great and the story pulls in a lot of Scooby-Doo history by revisiting old villains. Despite my dislike of Daphne's character design, it's a high quality production and I would love to see Coco Diablo show up in a future adventure.