Scooby Doo! and WWE: The Curse of the Speed Demon
This is a real movie. This isn't some fan fiction someone conjured up. This is real and it is weird as hell. Are you ready? I SAID ARE YOU REA- you know what, let's get this shit over with.
Scooby Doo! and WWE: Curse of the Speed Demon is one of many bizarre WWE animated movies. For some reason, Warner Brothers thought Hanna Barbera characters needed a wrestling makeover. That reason is probably MONEY, MONEY, MONEEEEE- okay, I'll stop with the wrestling references.
Scooby Doo is no stranger to crossovers. There was a spinoff series that was nothing but crossovers. I loved it. As a kid, I thought seeing Scooby and the gang with the likes of Don Knotts, Mama Cass, and even The Addams Family was the coolest thing ever. Scooby Doo still does crossovers. There's been one with KISS, Supernatural, and even some of the mystery solving teams from other Hanna Barbera shows. Scooby Doo and WWE though, that's just WEIRD! I don't know why, but I wasn't prepared for Shaggy marking out to The Undertaker or Daphne trying to be besties with Stephanie McMahon.
Ugh, on to the review:
Warning: There will be spoilers.
So, WWE is having some off-road racing event. That's a thing I just said. The racers are put into teams. Let's see, there's The Authority (Triple H and Stephanie McMahon), Los Matadores (Fernando, Diego, and El Torito), Rusev and Lana, Miz and Paige (weird pairing but okay), Goldust, Stardust, and Sheamus (ummmmm....*groans*), and the late Dusty Rhodes and The Undertaker (another weird pairing but whatever). Other WWE personalities featured are Kofi Kingston, Michael Cole, and Vince McMahon.
There's a "demon racer" that tries to destroy the other racer's vehicles. It actually does destroy Undertaker's car and Dusty Rhodes gets injured. Undertaker teams up with Scooby and Shaggy. It's made to look like Vince McMahon is the mastermind behind the "demon racer". It would make sense, but nope, it's not him. The promoter, Dusty Rhodes, and some mechanic guy that sounds like John Goodman are also suspects. The demon racer is actually....wait for it.....wait for it....Triple H with the help of Stephanie McMahon!
Ugh. Just ugh.
Imagine being someone who loves Scooby Doo, but isn't a wrestling fan watching this for the first time. You don't know who any of the wrestlers are (with the exception of The Undertaker because c'mon, who DOESN'T know who The Undertaker is?)You know ZERO about WWE, have never seen RAW or Smackdown!, and have no desire to watch it. You'd be confused as hell as to what's going on and would definitely not like this movie.
Curse of the Speed Demon is more of a WWE movie than a Scooby Doo movie. The wrestling personalities dominate the entirety of the movie. Scooby and the gang play second fiddle when they should be the stars. I couldn't help but groan every time the Scooby Doo characters would suck up to the wrestlers and exposition drop their nicknames, moves, and who they are. It's like they're trying to convince the non-WWE fans to get invested, but they turned this thing off a long time ago.
So is there anything good about this movie?
Well, the animation is good. The colors are a bit dark, but I guess it's to go with the spooky theme. The wrestlers look like their real life counterparts. Not gonna lie, the animated Paige is hot. I would've loved to see her and Velma....yeah I'm getting off topic here. Um, where were we? Oh yeah, the pros. The voice acting is decent, even for the WWE Superstars. They sounded like they were having fun in the recording studio. However, I like Undertaker a lot more when he doesn't talk so much. Just sayin.
Now for the cons. Ugggggggggh, where to begin?
Like I said earlier, this is more of a WWE movie than a Scooby Doo movie. It's already an awkward crossover. This is such an obvious cash grab by both the WWE and Warner Brothers. I guess I can see how they think this works. Both franchises are super popular so why not bring them together? It doesn't always work and Curse of the Speed Demon is a good example. Why not just make it a WWE animated feature on its own? Hell, they take over and the Scooby gang just seem like side characters. It's like the cartoon equivalent of Mac and Me. Okay, maybe it's not that painful, but both movies shove product placement down your throat. With Mac and Me, it was McDonald's, Coke, and Skittles. For Speed Demon, it's WWE. The Scooby characters say the name of wrestlers' finishers, Shaggy and Scooby are Undertaker marks, and Daphne tries to befriend Stephanie because they both have rich dads. When a wrestler is involved in an action scene, their theme song plays. To add to the annoying, Michael Cole even uses that "Vintage (insert wrestler name here)!" line. It's off putting and I'm a casual fan of wrestling who's familiar with the wrestlers in this movie. Hell, I saw two of them (Undertaker and Miz) in person.
The wrestlers racing just seems so odd and out of place. I mean, didn't they learn from the failure of WWE Crush Hour?
Wrestling fans may be split on this one. Some might enjoy seeing their favorite wrestler in animated form. Some might be like me and find it forced and annoying.
Fans of Scooby Doo will be disappointed because what should be the main characters are shoved to the side in favor of the WWE wrestlers. They might like the mystery part of it, but that's about it.
People that dislike wrestling will loathe this movie. They'll more than likely have no idea who the wrestlers are or what's going on. They might find it silly considering they already have a negative view of pro-wrestling, especially the WWE.
Yeah, I wasn't crazy about Scooby Doo! and WWE: Curse of the Speed Demon. Sure, it has good animation and voice acting, but the constant focus on the WWE part and the overshadowing the Scooby Doo part is annoying to me. It should've been strictly a WWE movie without the Scooby Doo characters.