Scooby-Doo & The Monster of Mexico [Blu-ray]

Another Fascinating Locale Offers Tricks and Treats for All
The Scooby-Doo movies of recent years have been generally warmly welcomed in our household. They tend to be of two schools: 1) more silly than serious, low on mystery, and catering to a young audience (Scooby-Doo and the Ghoul School or Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf come to mind) and 2) more serious than silly, emphasizing mystery, and catering to an older audience (Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island or Scooby-Doo and the Alien Invaders come to mind). My wife and I enjoy Scooby-Doo and watch it with our children, but we try to stay away from the sillier films. This movie, Scooby-Doo and the Monster of Mexico, looked to be of the more serious variety, so we bought it. Here are my thoughts:

The Animation: The first thing I noticed was that the movie opens with some nice animation eye-candy. (Generally, key scenes seem to begin with some startling visual, such as rippling water or flickering flames.) I thought the quasi-3D animation was a nice change from that seen on some of...

The best Scooby-Doo ever?!
Upon first viewing of this new movie with my five-year-old son, I was prepared to declare it as somewhat disappointing and meandering.

But when the credits rolled, my son looked at me with a big smile and declared, "That was the best Scooby-Doo ever!"

So, what do I know? I bow to his critique and award this movie a full five stars.

Vera Cruz and Mexico City Views by Scooby and the Gang
We (spouse and children and I) just viewed this DVD tonight and are extremely pleased. The familiar "bad-guy-caught-at-the-end" format is used as well as the typical Scooby Doo format of mishaps with the Mystery Machine, food-hungry Scooby & Shaggy, red herrings, ballads, etc. plus a very mild love-interest for Scooby. The clothes and vocals are just like the original series, too.

What really caught our attention was the similar style to the original televsion series when Scooby and the gang visited various locations and learned things about the places they visited. Having visited Vera Cruz and Mexico City, we were struck by the similarities with the cartoon animation of Vera Cruz and Mexico City. We were also pleased to see Mexico/Mexicans portrayed in a positive way rather than as sterotypes.-There is even some basic Spanish used in a way to educate youngsters.

The cupacabra (evil monster/ goatsucker) which frightened tourists from Vera Cruz was a bit dated, but caused us to...

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