Scooby-Doo! WrestleMania Mystery (2014) – Review

It’s not unusual for the Scooby gang to run into famous characters or real-life celebrities, in fact, that was the whole basis of The New Scooby-Doo Movies, but with Scooby-Doo! WrestleMania Mystery, it’s not so much a case of Mystery Incorporated helping out a group of celebrities, as it is Warner Bros. Animation becoming a blatant promotional arm of the WWE and their upcoming 2014 WrestleMania.

While playing an X-Box 360 Kinect-type wrestling video game, Shaggy (Matthew Lillard) and Scooby-Doo (Frank Welker) win all-expenses paid tickets to WWE City to watch WrestleMania. Now, while this completely thrills Shaggy and Scooby, the rest of the gang are less than excited — not that I’d blame them, as it’d bore me to tears — but once Shaggy points out all the times that he and Scooby have been used for bait against various monsters, they cave and agree on the trip. Fred (Frank Welker) concedes that WrestleMania would be a great place to try out his new camera while Velma (Mindy Cohn) points out that, “This will give me an opportunity to explore the parallels between the modern world of WWE versus ancient warrior customs.” Sure, we’ll go with that excuse. Meanwhile, Daphne (Grey Griffin) remains rather despondent about going and it’s never explained why she just doesn’t stay home, but when she eventually comes face-to-abs with wrestling star John Cena, she immediately jumps on the wrestling bandwagon.

Daphne’s love for Fred is a rather fickle beast.

As this is a Scooby-Doo mystery, and not just a commercial for WrestleMania, the gang soon encounters a monstrous Ghost Bear who they later learn has been vandalizing many parts of the WWE City. This particular creature is apparently the legendary ghost of an 18th-century wrestling bear that lost a match to the luchador wrestler known as Sin Cara Grande, and it went on a rampage before disappearing into the mountains. Unfortunately for us, the Ghost Bear is only one of many uninteresting elements that make up Scooby-Doo! WrestleMania Mystery with its borderline pathetic design — a red bear with a glowing head and what looks like some bones glued to the fur — and the reveal that it’s just an idiot in a robot bear suit with way too long of a wait.

“The simple bare necessities of life.”

On the mystery side of things, we get a few possible suspects trotted out — though the guilty party sticks out like a sore thumb — first, we have Bayard (Corey Burton), a hillbilly-type loner who hates the WWE for gobbling up “All our land,” but as building a robot Ghost Bear looks a bit out of this man’s wheelhouse, he’s not really in the running. Then we have the wrestler Kane (Glenn Jacobs) who believes his title was stolen away from him; and finally, there is Cookie (Charles S. Dutton) a WWE trainer who wants his nephew Ruben (Bumper Robinson) to give up his dream of being a pro-wrestler and study computer sciences instead. Cookie used to be a wrestler himself, but an injury left him using a leg brace and ended that part of his career, which points a neon arrow at him as being the man behind the Ghost Bear.

He never would have gotten away with it.

The Ghost Bear isn’t the only threat facing the Scooby gang, as shortly after arriving at WWE City, Scooby-Doo finds himself being arrested for stealing the WWE Championship Belt, which he actually did steal, but only because the wrestling video game he’d played earlier had planted post-hypnotic commands in his head. Before he can be carted off to jail by WWE security, Mr. McMahon offers Scooby and Shaggy a chance at freedom if they defeat Kane at WrestleMania, and that is just one final bit of stupidity in what is a rather lacklustre and moronic mystery.

Stray Thoughts:

· Fred’s resistance to visit WWE City and WrestleMania makes little sense because he was a major wrestling fan in the What’s New, Scooby-Doo? Episode “Wrestle Maniacs.”
· Fred, Shaggy and Scooby-Doo get a room with only twin beds, which strangely enough results in Fred sleeping on the floor.
· Bayard hates WWE City for gobbling up all of his land, but doesn’t this require him to sell the land? Or is the WWE able to declare Eminent Domain?
· John Cena speaks for the masked luchador which comes in handy when the silent Sin Cara has to relay the legend of the Ghost Bear.
· Does WWE City exist outside United States’ laws and thus one can be exonerated from a crime via Trial by Combat?
· Daphne and Velma get angry at Shaggy and Scooby for packing tons of snacks instead of their luggage, but Shaggy quickly points out, “What’s the big deal? We all wear the same outfit every single day anyway.”

Though Daphne still has a variety of green scarves to choose from.

I have to admit I am not a wrestling fan, so seeing all these “famous wrestlers” appearing in a Scooby-Doo animated film did nothing for me, and that the whole thing was basically an eighty-minute commercial for WrestleMania was just one more thing to stick in my craw, but if the mystery itself had been decent, or if the monster had been even remotely interesting, I could have forgiven the sellout aspect of this movie. Sadly, there is nothing here for anyone who isn’t a WWE fan to enjoy, as the Scooby-Doo mystery facet of this direct-to-video feature was paper-thin and lame.

Note: I would have forgiven all if Velma had revealed to everyone that pro wrestling was fake.

You can find all my reviews of the various Scooby-Doo shows and movies collected here: The Wonderful World of Scooby-Doo.