'Scooby-Doo! The Sword and the Scoob' Has One of the Most Notably Ludicrous Plots in the Franchise

After finishing a trilogy, the Scooby-Doo! direct-to-video franchise returns to a standalone adventure with Scooby-Doo! The Sword and the Scoob.  The silly logistical plot device this time is Shaggy turning out to be the rightful heir to Camelot based on an obscure chapter of Arthurian legend involving his ancestor.  This sends the Scooby Gang to a village in England named Norville der Morgana, which is suspected to be the modern location of Camelot.  There, they encounter the antagonist of Arthurian legend Morgan Le Fay, who casts a spell that sends them back to the past during the time of Camelot, Merlin, King Arthur, Excalibur, and the Knights of the Round Table.

Scooby-Doo! The Sword and the Scoob definitely features one of the most convoluted, most absurd plots (i.e. the villain’s scheme, not the narrative, although meaning it to be the narrative won’t be a wrong impression either) ever.  Having seen many Scooby-Doo! movies, I’ve come to expect how these narratives go – where nothing is what it seems at face value, but the explanations for these mysteries are often as implausible as the supernatural phenomenon that they initially appear to be.  You just learn to roll with the punches, and enjoy the ludicrous twists-and-turns as they are.  Still, Scooby-Doo! The Sword and the Scoob felt more ludicrous than usual

All things considered, Scooby-Doo! The Sword and the Scoob was just the typical Scooby-Doo! watching experience for me.  That means there are parts which I found excruciatingly dumb, and there are parts that I found fun.  Some of the jokes fell flat for me, and some jokes made me genuinely chuckle.

One of the highlights is the time travel sequence, since to signify the passage of time, clips from old-school Scooby-Doo! animated TV shows are shown (although, this actually doesn’t make sense since, *SPOILER* as revealed later, they didn’t really travel back in time; there was no time travel spell working during that scene).  It also has some nice pop culture references, including nods to the classic Twilight Zone episode “Nightmare at 20,000 feet” and to the animated series Thundarr the Barbarian.  Moreover, there may no celebrity cameo this time, but the cast has some big names with Jason Isaacs (King Arthur) and Nick Frost (Merlin).

In the end, Scooby-Doo! The Sword and the Scoob isn’t incredible or hysterical, but it’s once again a fairly satisfying caper where the Scoob Gang can be a delightfully goofy mystery-solving quintet.  And for most long-time fans, that is enough.