Review of Daphne & Velma (2018) by Jennifer L — 15 Sep 2018

Shame stickers. Robot sacrifices. Getting your fruit on. And the friendship origin story of two of our favorite teen sleuths (pre-Mystery Machine.).

Director Suzi Yoonessi's "Daphne and Velma" shines, managing to keep a perfect balance between spot on Scooby Doo references and reenvisioning the franchise in a playful but grounded manner that's wholly new.

The writing is just the right mix of goofiness; keeping the mildly spooky and cartoonish flavor of the original series, while surprisingly bringing a lot of heart and sincerity to what is in essence a girl buddy film. Which, by the way, there are far too few of. The female positivity in the movie makes it a solid choice for parents who are tired of one note girl characters. It's interesting how what's ostensibly a kid flick does a better job of passing the Bechdel Test (i.e. scenes where at least two women or girls have a conversation that covers something other than men) than most mainstream adult fare.

The casting is awesome - it's a lively collection of dedicated performers who all bring nuance to their parts (large or small.) It's also refreshingly diverse - to include the fact that Daphne comes from a bi-racial family. (Yay! Note to Hollywood, can we get more of this please?).

There's sight and sound gags galore - kudos to the design and editing team - making for a movie that begs for repeat viewing to catch them all.

It's an engaging ride for both the kids it was made for, as well as the parents who will be watching with them. Given that many parents like me spent many a Saturday morning with the gang from Scooby Doo, it was really great to get to know them again, now with my kid in tow.

I feel like we really need more movies like this in the family live action space - I look forward to hopefully seeing more from this talented team.