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The original David Mook and Ben Raleigh theme for the show does make a token arrangement in Scoob!, adapted to a surf rock tone in "Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?" but sadly not utilized anywhere else in the score, which is a travesty given that this film, as an origin story, could have intelligently developed the idea into its final form as the film progressed. Instead, Holkenborg conjured an abundance of themes for Scooby-Doo and Shaggy's relationship, the Mystery Inc. gang, and most of the secondary characters in the film. Unfortunately, while there are a ton of themes with potential sprinkled throughout the score, none ultimately is enunciated well enough to capture your attention outside of context. The Scooby-Doo and Shaggy theme is a simple but lovely descending phrase occupying "Scooby's Collar" and recurring notably at 3:53 into "Athens Arrival" with a lovely duduk solo and again in "Noble Sacrifice." The Mystery Inc. gang have a hip surf guitar and Hammond organ motif that works well enough for them. The other character themes come and go, sometimes making sense while at other times, as in the application of the duduk to Muttley in "Dick Finds Muttley," the renderings are odd. The instrumentation of Scoob! is all over the place, 1960's psychedelia and hip-hop mixing with industrial abrasiveness, ethnic swooning, and traditional orchestral bombast. The bulk of the score's volume is supplied by the symphonic elements, with brief moments of organic grandeur, as in the Blue Falcon theme early in the cue of that name and the "Noble Sacrifice" finale, but don't expect much consistently satisfying development for the ensemble. There is some Carl Stalling humor involved, joining occasional classical music references for the genre's basic needs. The pair of "Haunted House" and "First Case Solved" present what this score really could have used in greater doses, the Mystery Inc. team offered their action and cool teamwork motifs (complete with xylophone, a nice tip of the hat to the cartoon music generally) in a way that strongly resembles equivalent John Debney music for the genre in the late 1990's and beyond. The psychedelic portions, offering electronic manipulation aplenty, are unlistenable and distract from any thematic extension attempted at those moments. Almost as challenging is the grandiose Cerberus motif in "Athens Arrival" and "Cerberus Unleashed," which stomps through choral pomposity that, especially with the duduk accompaniment, reminds of parodies like Christopher Lennertz's Meet the Spartans. Together, these elements, despite their somewhat smart design, never coalesce into a truly functional film score, the main themes underplayed and the narrative badly neglected. It's a resume-builder for Holkenborg, surely, but an obnoxious one at that.  **   @Amazon.com: CD or Download

Bias Check:

For Tom Holkenborg reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 2.16 (in 19 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 2.49 (in 6,100 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.

Total Time: 47:52