Movie Review: Scooby-Doo! And Kiss: Rock and Roll Mystery

Would you call for a road trip to see your favorite band? In July 2015, the Scooby gang hit the road for a concert, and found a rock 'n' roll filled mystery along the way.

Directing this 72 minute animation/family is Spike Brandt and Tony Cervone.

Some of the voice cast is: Frank Welker as Fred Jones/Scooby-Doo, Matthew Lillard as Shaggy Rogers, Grey Griffin as Daphne Blake, Mindy Cohn as Velma Dinkley, Jennifer Carpenter as Chikara, Pauley Perrette as Delilah/The Crimson Witch, Gene Simmons as The Demon, Paul Stanley as Starchild, Eric Singer as Catman, Tommy Thayer as The Spaceman, Doc McGhee as Chip McGhoo and Darius Rucker as The Destroyer.

Scooby and the gang are traveling to a Kiss themed amusement park called Kiss World to watch the band perform at the big Halloween concert. Unfortunately, it looks like the gang won't get to see Kiss
perform because the park is being haunted by... the Crimson Witch! Doing what they do best, the gang gets ready to solve yet another mystery and hopefully still get to watch Kiss perform. However, this mystery is proving a little harder to solve than usual. Luckily for the Scooby gang, they're not the only detectives in the park. Come to find out, the members of Kiss like solving mysteries too. Maybe together the Mystery Machine and Kiss can stop the Crimson Witch and still find time for some rock n' roll.

For those of you that don't know, I'm a huge Scooby-Doo fan. I've grown up watching Scooby and the gang solving mysteries for... well, lets just say a long time. So, over the years I've caught (almost all) the television shows and movies (live action and animation). Then my mind was blown, I saw the band Kiss in the title of this one. A freaking Scooby-Doo and Kiss team up!!! What could make crime solving better? Yep, you guessed it, some epic Rock N' Roll! I never expected too see the legendary band that was formed back in 1973 solving crime with my favorite (kind of) talking great dane of awesomeness. Yeah, I know I may have bent some grammar rules back there, but I'm talking about Kiss and Scooby-Doo I have to have use "awesomeness". I was going to go with awesome-sauce, but that seemed weird. Anyway, it's not like Kiss is new to the whole starring in a movie thing. Before this title they had two other films (the first one is my favorite) Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park (1978) and Detroit Rock City (1999).

This direct to video mystery was written by James Krieg and Kevin Shinick. The story is your typical Scooby-Doo adventure based scenario. The gang is looking to go do something when all of the sudden a "mystery" lands in their laps. Now, it's not like the mystery gang is new to the whole team up crime solving. We've seen the gang pair up in the past with The Three Stooges, Batman and Robin, The Harlem Globetrotters and Tim Conway. Jinkies! They've even worked with musical talents like Jerry Reed, Josie and the Pussycats, Davy Jones, and Sonny and Cher. So, if you've seen them team up before you know what you're getting into with this one. Mystery filled antics, musical advertising for the guest(s), t-o-n-s of food disappearing (thanks to Shaggy n Scooby). Then things are all wrapped up by some good hearted meddling kids who bring justice to an unjust world before the credits roll.
                                           

The animation was good, but I wasn't fond of the character design by Dan Haskett when it came to the look of the Kiss members. Other than that, I liked the look of everything else. There's some cool looking scenes and backgrounds that are space-tastic looking and help the story really well.

The voice cast was cool and everyone did a good job. Cohn does a great Velma and I hope she keeps doing the role. Also, Lillard is another one of those must have people when looking to have someone play Shaggy. Lillard won me over when he first played Shaggy, and I can't see anyone doing a better job than he does. Some of the other cast that caught my eye and was cool to hear was Darius Rucker, Penny Marshall,  Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes. 

Quick (cool) note, all the songs in the flick are actual Kiss songs and there is a new song "Don't Touch My Ascot", which was done for the movie.

Overall, I really liked this one and it's something the whole family can sit down and enjoy. Plus, you get a two-fer out of this one. You have another Scooby movie the kids will dig AND(!) you get to introduce the kids to a band from an era of music that was filled with? Yep, you guessed it... awesomeness! So, go grab some Scooby worthy snacks, sit back and jam (with the kids of course) to Kiss's  Rock and Roll All Nite and Shout It Out Loud... you know you want to.

It's rated TV-Y7 (rated for children at least 7 years old) and has (the usual meddling mystery sleuths kind of) violence.

3 stars

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