Movie Review - Scooby-Doo! & Batman: The Brave and the Bold

I loved Batman: The Brave & the Bold and was really sad when it was cancelled and replaced by that joke Beware the Batman, which didn't even last a season. (Who honestly thought THAT was a good idea? Even the concept stunk. Let's not even get into the execution.) Batman: The Brave & the Bold was a love letter to the Silver Age of Comics, Dick Sprang's weird cartoony style, and Jack Kirby-style action. It was probably the closest to a direct translations of comics coming alive on the screen possible. And I love Scooby-Doo and all the crossovers and adventures he and the gang undertake.

Scooby-Doo! & Batman: The Brave and the Bold is a 2018 direct-to-home-video superhero animated movie. It is appropriate for all ages.

The Good

Premise. The Scooby-Doo gang is invited to join a secret mystery solving club consisting of several DC Characters. They end up working on Batman's only unsolved case. Cool idea!

Action. This movie is filled with heroes and villains from the DC Universe with lots of fighting and other superhero action, which is exactly what a fan wants to see.

Characters. This movie included a lot of DC characters, some we haven't seen before and others in versions we haven't seen before, which was one of the things that made Batman: The Brave and the Bold so much fun.

Animation Style. This movie was in the style of Batman: The Brave and the Bold which was basically the Dick Sprang and the Silver Age of Comics. Even the Scooby-Doo characters were redesigned to match this style, and they work incredibly well in it. It's one of my favorite interpretations of them.

The Bad

The Story. While this movie had a great premise, there wasn't a lot to the actual story. It was mostly a clue leading to a new location so the gang could fight a handful of villains, find another clue, go to another location, and fight more villains.

Pacing. Most of this movie moved at a decent pace, but there were times when the story lagged and I found myself looking at the time.

What I Would Like to Have Seen

I wish the story had been stronger. This movie was little more than an excuse to showcase a bunch of villains, which was cool, but could have been cooler.

Overall

Scooby-Doo! & Batman: The Brave and the Bold is a fun movie featuring over a dozen of Batman villains from the heavy hitters like Joker, Penguin, and Riddler, to the lightweights you probably wouldn't recognize the names of. The animation style, the action, and the premise are all solid and top notch. The story is a little thin and the pacing slow as the gang travels from one clue to the next mostly so a new group of villains or characters gets screen time. This movie is exactly what you expect it to be. I give this film 4 boxes of popcorn out of 5.