Scooby-Doo! in Where's My Mummy? (2005) ****/*****
Here we are, earthlings, the 9th movie in the DTV series, It's been a long road, and sometimes boring road, but we made it! We have nearly completed 1/4 of our journey. Let's see what adventure awaits us this time as.
Mystery Inc. fight graverobbers and a curse left behind by Cleopatra while vacationing in Egypt.
Okay... first things first... the score provided by Thomas Chase Jones is a criminally bad synthesizer assault on the ears. Which is a shame because the title sequence is among the best in the series so far. It's a grade c mix of stereotypical musical soundscapes you associate with Egypt. Made worse by the inept handling of a synthesizer.
Virginia Madsen as Cleopatra is so gloriously over the top she is not only chewing the scenery, but devouring it whole.
One thing that made me smile, was the Boris Karloff homage voiced by Ron Perlman, I never expected to see Karloff appear in a Scooby Doo movie. Even if it's just an animated avatar.
This was a fun adventure comedy that managed to pay tribute to both the 1932 and 1999 Mummy movies. With the Boris Karloff lookalike repping 1932 and Oded Fehr essentially playing his role from the 1999 movie.
You even had a morally bankrupt Tomb Raider type who only wanted the treasure. Who provided some pretty cool action sequences.
It's a same she was the bad guy, because she would've been a fun guest star fighting against truly supernatural forces. Of which, this movie has none. It's another "the ghost is a fake" type of deal. But it does offer up a fairly unique twist to the proceedings. Granted it's sort of given away well before the end, but you only realize this once the monster is unmasked. And there are enough clues as to what's actually going on that it's fun to piece together.
Aside from the soundtrack, the movie is a huge improvement over the last few entries. Fred, though in idiot mode, was even more more charming and better developed, obviously Frank Welker loved the material because he definitely upped his charisma factor.
Character wise, Daphne isn't given much to do and is just sort of there. Fred steals the show and everyone else is just along for the ride.
On the surface Velma is a non-factor who is taken out of the narrative pretty fast, leaving the rest of the gang to solve what was going on.
The soundtrack is the biggest drawback here, it lacks a strong chase theme and strong thematic material. The songs are a weird Egyption/Jazz hybrid that never really works, though they did their best. I can't help but feel this might have worked better had they scored it like an actual horror movie, kinda like Abbott & Costello meet The Universal Monsters series.
| Song | Credits | Performed by | Character performance by |
|---|---|---|---|
| "Mummy's Rags and Riches" | Written by Thomas Chase Jones and Joe Sichta Lyrics by Thomas Chase Jones Produced by Thomas Chase Jones | Joe Pizzulo | N/A |
| "Which Curse is Worse" | Bobette Jamison-Harrison and Molly Pasutti | N/A | |
| "Pharaoh's Rag" | Written and produced by Thomas Chase Jones | N/A | N/A |
Voice Cast
Mystery Inc. (No Changes)
- Frank Welker as Scooby-Doo and Fred Jones
- Casey Kasem as Shaggy Rogers
- Grey DeLisle as Daphne Blake / Natasha
- Mindy Cohn as Velma Dinkley
- Christine Baranski as Amelia Von Butch
- Ajay Naidu as Prince Omar Karam
- Ron Perlman as Armin Granger aka Hotep / Ancient One #2 Scooby-Doo! Pirates Ahoy!, What's New, Scooby-Doo?
- Jeremy Piven as Rock Rivers
- Wynton Marsalis as Campbell
- Oded Fehr as Amahl Ali Akbar / Ancient One #1
- Virginia Madsen as Cleopatra
- This movie marks The last Scooby-Doo animated film to be released on VHS.
- It also received a limited theatrical release through Kidtoon Films.
- The turning to stone trick was used in Scooby Doo and a Mummy, Too (1969). The character Camel Sam from Mummy Scares Best (2003) can be seen at the bizarre. He is not given a voice.
Zombie Island |
Alien Invaders |
Monster of Mexico |
Witch's Ghost |
Aloha, Scooby-Doo |
Loch Ness Monster |
Cyberchase |
Legend of the Vampire |
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