It's Halloween, and Scooby and the gang visit the Coolsville Halloween carnival where they go to see a magician called "The Amazing Krudsky." But when the second-rate snob forbids Scooby from coming inside, Shaggy and the Great Dane hatch up a scheme to show the audience how much of a fake he is. This makes Krudsky so angry and frustrated with his nowhere career that he hatches up a magical scheme after catching Princess fairy Willow in his dressing room. With her under his total control he can gain the scepter of the Goblin King to become more powerful than he ever could've dreamed. Now it's up to Scooby and Shaggy to go to the hidden world of werewolves, witches, vampires and fairies and stop him before he can make the fatal trade.
I gotta say, I expected more from this. When I saw the trailer I honestly thought Velma, Fred and Daphne were turned into Halloween creatures, and Scooby and Shaggy had to go somewhere to find the "cure." It turned out to not really be like that at all.
The first problem is that there's absolutely no mystery anywhere. At least in their earlier direct-to-video movies, like Zombie Island and Witch's Ghost, which also featured "real" monsters, there was something to figure out, something to solve. It felt so empty without that structure to it. In Goblin King, the huge threat of what could happen when Krudsky gets his prize is unclear, and there's no sense of real danger from anything Scooby and Shaggy do.
Another problem is that, unless you're a huge fan of our "cowardly duo," you're out of luck. The other three are barely in this movie at all, and they prove to be pretty useless at that. Not to mention I sense they were trying to push some kind of "courage" moral in the story using the boy and his dog. When has Scooby Doo ever spun a moral from their usual exploits?
Overall, it feels like a huge disappointment, full of bad jokes (especially on the part of the talking Jack O' Lantern - you read right) and over-the-top goofyness. Apparently they spent so much money on the stars for the voices (Jay Leno, Tim Curry, and Wayne Knight, to name a few) they forgot to focus some on the WRITING. Small children will probably like it but I'd advise Scooby fans to avoid this if possible. They need to stick to solving mysteries! It's what they do!
Did I forget to mention there's also singing?
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