They style of the first screen might seem familiar to some - it looks like a series for which i've previously expressed great fondness - Batman: The Brave & The Bold. Y'know, this guy:
...and, indeed, it is a movie based on the show. With plenty of old favorites, like the 'outrageous' Aquaman...
Co-stars include The Martian Manhunter, Black Canary, The Question, Plastic Man, Detective Chimp, and plenty of others...
...some very others...
Of course, along with our heroes, there's a whole troop of villains cavorting (and chasing through doors & corridors in classic Scooby fashion) to match...
Of course, Batman and the Scooby-Doo Crew team-ups go back 40 years and more, to the days when Casey Casem was voicing both Shaggy and Robin. But this is a very specific Batman, with a quite distinctive vibe - one which they kept for this movie. The nature of the Silver Age comics that the show embraces actually makes it fairly easy to bring the Scooby crew into the world of the show - and throw them up against the worst that Gotham and Arkham have to offer.
It actually works pretty well.
Diedrich Bader is back as Batman, of course, and John DiMaggio as Aquaman. Jeffery Combs is a great choice for The Question, and the rest of the top notch cast includes Tara Strong, Fred Tatasciore, and Kevin Michael Richardson (about whom we'll surely talk more soon).
To be honest, i haven't watched the recent wave of Scooby-Doo animated movies. I think it's a fairly safe bet that this is the usual voice cast despite my ignorance, especially since they get top billing. Frank Welker leads as both Fred & Scooby, with Grey Griffin doing double duty as both Daphne and Black Canary.
More than being entertaining - weaving the typical Scooby-Doo tale together with a Silver Age detective club and a case from the beginning of Batman's career - the film also gives me hope for more Batman: The Brave & The Bold movies in the future. Bat-Mite took the show from us too soon, and the replacement series tanked because it didn't sell enough toys. I much enjoyed the first season of Justice League Action, but i'd purely love to see more B:TB&TB.
screens from Scooby-Doo & Batman: The Brave And The Bold (2018)
