Own the rights?
Allow me to quote from Roger Ebert's review. This is perhaps the least explicable thing he has ever said:"…one thing above all caught my attention: the director, Raja Gosnell, has a thing about big breasts. I say this not only because of the revealing low-cut costumes of such principals as Sarah Michelle Gellar, but also because of the number of busty extras and background players, who drift by in crowd scenes with what Russ Meyer used to call 'cleavage cantilevered on the same principle that made the Sydney Opera House possible.' … 'Scooby-Doo' could have been a comedy about how a Russ Meyer clone copes with being assigned a live-action adaptation of a kiddie cartoon show."Now, speaking as someone who really DOES have a thing about big breasts, I have no idea what Ebert is talking about – and believe me, I'd have noticed the cleavage he alludes to if it had really been there. I, too, was bored; moreover, primed by his review and grateful to have something to take my mind off the inept banality of it all, I was actually LOOKING for boob footage right from the start. I can report that the women in the film, extras included, did actually have breasts, which is just as well; but that's about all I can report. Has Ebert taken a look at the outside world lately? You can see far more just glancing out across a busy street. There's EVERY kind of women's clothing out there: utilitarian, tight, loose, translucent, opaque, Islamic, cute, subtly flattering, little flesh, much flesh. This diversity is a GOOD thing. In films – especially films like this one – the extremes are deliberately avoided. Nobody wears much more or much less than anyone else. Nobody's aesthetic sensibility is different from anybody else's. It's as though there's a strict company dress code, and about as exciting to look at.I wouldn't be going on at such great length if this bland, unadventurous uniformity in dress (and shape and physical appearance generally) weren't of a piece with the bland, unadventurous uniformity of the entire film. There's NOTHING in it to command anyone's attention. (Ebert mentioned an array of well-displayed breasts, but he probably imagined it.) It knows the moves, it knows what's currently fashionable and what teen movies are currently allowed to do and what they're not, but it's about as exciting to watch as the rulebook which governs its every move would be to read.And let's get one thing straight: the same goes for the source material. You liked it as a kid? Then you were duped as a kid, and the sooner you admit it, the better. You feel nostalgia? Get over it. I know now (I may even have known then) that I was so hungry for animated fantasy as a child that I would have watched anything, anything at all, and talked myself into thinking I liked it, and so (among other things) I watched and talked myself into thinking I liked 'Scooby Doo'. I never grew to feel any if fondness for it, but if I had, it would signify nothing, since being brainwashed as a child is the ONLY way to develop such fondness. Much of what's loathsome about the cartoons makes its way through to the movie. You have the group of friends who are together not through their own inclinations but because the marketing department assigned them to one another; you have catch phrases and gimmicks (like the title character's supposedly cute speech impediment) which are embarrassing to even THINK about; you have bad animation – in this case, bad CGI.To give credit where it's due, there is ONE funny line, delivered by Rowan Atkinson, concerning the cat with the bopping head. But then, this is yet another film in which Rowan Atkinson's ability to make anything funny is PRESUMED upon.
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