What a time it is to be alive if you're a WWE fan. Not only is the pro wrestling league producing a host of R-rated action films,
they're also teaming up with famous Hanna-Barbera properties in the Warner Bros. Animation library to give us family-friendly direct-to-video movies. The first of these came in 2014's Scooby-Doo! WrestleMania Mystery and it was apparently well-received enough for them to make another after The Flintstones & WWE: Stone Age Smackdown. This month brought Scooby-Doo! and WWE: Curse of the Speed Demon to stores.
Curse of the Speed Demon finds the Scooby-Doo gang watching their favorite wrestlers participate in some kind of WWE car race. Shaggy and Scooby are operating a food truck next to the track. And their friends number among the event's many enthusiastic spectators.
The race is upended when a mysterious demon crashes it and his demon rig disappears. Mr. McMahon himself asks the Mystery Machine gang to solve this mystery. And you know they will.
This is such an odd movie, one which exists primarily to advance these two very distant brands with seemingly little overlap to their target audiences. Of course, the WWE personalities all voice themselves,
with the expectation that you already know their character stories and traits. If you have as little interest in wrestling as I do, then the Scooby-Doo gang's enthusiasm for these entertainers is likely to amuse.
The Scooby-Doo franchise, meanwhile, has surprisingly endured. Nearly fifty years since being introduced and over ten since a pair of live-action movies made money and enemies, this cartoon universe persists both in television show and DTV feature form. Computer-generated elements stand out a little in a poor way amidst the traditional animation. But no one is watching this expecting Pixar-level visuals.
Curse of the Speed Demon is available on DVD and in the Blu-ray + DVD + Digital HD combo pack reviewed here.
VIDEO and AUDIO
I've already addressed the modest animation quality above. Naturally, the Blu-ray's high definition picture and sound is entirely without issue. The 1.78:1 transfer is vibrant, sharp, and spotless, while the 5.1 DTS-HD master audio soundtrack does a fine job of distributing an engaging mix.
BONUS FEATURES, MENUS, PACKAGING and DESIGN
As they usually do for these types of releases, Warner includes some substantial bonus features alongside the feature,
although strangely the Blu-ray encodes all of them in standard definition.
First up come two bonus cartoons, episodes of modern Scooby-Doo TV series.
From Cartoon Network's "Be Cool, Scooby Doo!" comes premiere episode "Mystery 101" (22:36; originally aired October 5, 2015). In it, Velma's interview at Elias Kingston University requires her to solve a ghost mystery to get accepted by her supposedly haunted dream college.
From "Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated", we get "The Secret of the Ghost Rig" (23:05; originally aired July 26, 2010), in which a ghost trucker troubles the town of Crystal Cove, where doorknobs are strangely disappearing.
"Revved Up with the Monster Jam Scooby-Doo Truck" (9:03) lets Nicole Johnson show us the technical features of the Scooby-Doo themed vehicle she drove in a monster truck tour called Monster Jam, which there are highlights of. I guess the monster truck buffs who bought the movie will appreciate this?
Finally, a Trailers section supplies previews for Lego Scooby-Doo!, Tom and Jerry: Back to Oz (wut?), and Lego Friends: Girlz 4 Life (wut?).
The disc opens with menu-inaccessible trailers for "Be Cool, Scooby-Doo!" Season 1, Part 1, Wabbit.: A Looney Tunes Production, and The Lego Batman Movie.
The static, silent menu adapts the cover art.
CLOSING THOUGHTS
There seems to be so little overlap between the fandoms of Scooby-Doo and WWE and yet here we are getting a second such animated crossover movie. I can't strongly recommend the feature to someone who isn't crazy about both franchises. With this versatile combo pack, Warner at least treats the movie to high quality picture and sound plus a trio of worthwhile bonus features.
Buy Scooby-Doo! and WWE: Curse of the Speed Demon from Amazon.com:
Blu-ray + DVD + Digital HD • DVD • Instant Video