BRM Reviews WWE Scooby Doo: Curse of the Speed Demon

[Big Red Machine]

I can’t believe I put this off for so long, but it’s finally time for the most anticipated direct-to-video sequel of all time!

After a credits sequence with a song that manages to be lame due to nothing other than pure generic-ness within the confines of something that kind of sounds like something you’d here in a racing movie, we get a bumper for the WWE “Muscle Moto Off-Road Challenge,” which appears to be pod-racing in tricked-out cars and trucks (so… just regular racing, I guess, but through a countryside, and with what appear to be jumps off of cliffs). Shaggy and Scooby are watching this while eating many hamburgers. Michael Cole then welcomes us to the “final qualifying race,” although apparently this qualifying race is more about determining starting order than it is about people actually qualifying to be in the race. Also, the winner of the whole thing will get a million dollars.
Their reception is bad so Scooby opens a window, revealing that they are sitting in the back of a food truck in the arena with the starting/finish line. It turns out it’s just a crazy track, and nowhere near as awesome as the commercial made it seem. Someone apparently went through the trouble of giving all of these cars goofy gimmick names such as “Too Awesome” (Miz), “Celtic Cruiser” (Sheamus), “The Pamplona Especial” (Los Matadores & El Torito), and my favorite: Rusev & Lana’s “Moscow Express.” Apparently Rusev did the job in this race, which makes the only time that Los Matadores have ever beaten him in anything. We see some mechanics working on The Moscow Express, which looks oddly like Thomas the Tank Engine. Lana seems to think that Rusev tanked the race to lull their opponents in a false sense of security, but that makes no sense because this race determined the starting order for the next, so the worse Rusev did here the more of a disadvantage he is at in the big races. He vows that “Rusev crush competition” which Lana evilly says will happen via “Russian ingenuity.”
Those of you who read my review of the initial installment will remember that I found that that movie, ostensibly marketed for children, contained a number of scenes in which characters did some rather dangerous things that we always tell our children not to do, including hitting wrestling moves on their friends at home. One of these things was Shaggy and Scooby clearly not wearing seatbelts. Well this movie has already managed to one-up that one several times over by showing us that while Sheamus drives The Celtic Cruiser, he is not the only member of the team. Also on his team are Stardust and Goldust, who insist on STANDING ON AND DANCING ON THE HOOD OF THE VEHICLE, WHILE IT IS IN MOTION. Stardust justifies this by saying that they have to purify their auras with the sun or some such standard bullsh*t that you would expect to hear from Stardust, so I guess they’re encouraging children to take drugs as well. At least Shaggy and Scooby have the decency to wait until they’re off-screen to smoke up.
Sheamus is unhappy with their antics, but not for the reasons you’d expect. Not because it’s unsafe for them to be out there or because them standing on the hood in front of the windshield is severely limiting his visibility, impairing both his chances of winning the race and driving without crashing, putting his own life in danger. No, Sheamus is angry because “you’re making us looked damned ridiculous!”
It turns out that “Too Awesome” is actually being driven by Paige with Miz in the passenger seat. Miz called her “sweetie” which is kind of creepy for both the age discrepancy and because by the time this came out, he was already acknowledged to be married on television.
Fred, Daphne, and Velma approach the food truck. In a fantastic bit of continuity, it appears that Shaggy and Scooby turned their fifteen minutes of fame from saving WrestleMania into a successful and officially-licensed food truck at this WWE event, with their top-selling item referring to their ring-names.

Vince drops by the commentary booth to provide us with some exposition. He says that this was all Steph’s idea, and that she is continuing the “McMahon family tradition” of “innovating new and exciting forms of sports entertainment.” So basically no one in that family has learned anything from the dismal failure of the XFL. Cole asks Vince if he thinks Steph and Hunter will win, but Vince says that Steph will surely be way too busy with her work at WWE headquarters to be worried about racing. Then we get an instant replay of “The Company Car,” which is Hunter and Steph’s. Steph is driving. Insert Steph joke here.
Vince apparently didn’t know that they were in the race, despite the fact that they were in the lead. In fact, they have apparently just set record time for the course. Insert Triple H joke here.
They pop out to celebrate and Steph declares that “no one can challenge a McMahon,” which makes Vince angry. Cole turns to Vince and says “I thought you said she wasn’t competing?” which causes Vince to storm off in anger.
We’re back at the food truck, where I can’t help but notice that at least 80% of the customers appear to be Undertaker cosplayers. Shaggy and Scooby are, too, apparently. They’re such big Taker fans that they’re closing down the truck so that they can go watch Taker’s run.
We get a second- and this time more overt- reference to “D.C. Pretzels.” Shaggy wants to know what the “D.C.” stands for. Velma informs him (and us watching at home) that it stands for “Dead Man’s Curve,” which is part of the track. The pretzels are specially-shaped to resemble the racetrack, including leaving a gap where part of it “crumbled away.” So they’re letting people race on this thing even though part of it is clearly broken? Insert corrupt state commission joke or WWE doesn’t kayfabe care about its employees' safety joke here.
(Side note: I was sad to see that my personal hypothesis as to what “D.C.” stood for- “D.C.” as in the current publisher of Scooby Doo comics- was incorrect. By the way, you all need to be reading Scooby Apocalypse. Seeing alternate-reality versions of Mystery Inc. as survivors in a post-apocalyptic world overrun by Lovecraftian horrors is such an insane mindf*ck that you want to laugh in even the most horrible of situations, but at the same time everything still retains this wonderful tone of horror and humanity.)
Fred gives us the specs on The Undertaker’s ride: “The Legendmobile.” This was extremely disappointing to me, as I was hoping that Taker would just be driving around the track on his motorcycle. If you’re wondering why Taker’s car has such a lame name, it’s because he’s sharing it with Dusty Rhodes, and being legends is just about the only thing they have in common. That and being from Texas, I guess.
Shaggy and Scooby are scared of Taker. Velma is confused and says “I thought you guys were Undertaker fans?” They responded that they like him when he’s on TV, but have now discovered that live, he is scary. Weren’t they on WrestleMania before? Surely they would have seen Taker live, right?
We find out that Kofi Kingston is acting as a reporter for a “Mr. Qualls,” who appears to be some sort of cross between a TV executive and a promoter. He apparently pitched “holding the Olympics in a hurricane.”

Taker and Dusty start their run. Dusty says that they will “make it to the pay window.” Taker says they will “bury the competition.” Insert Triple H joke here. Wait. Crap. I already did that one.
Speaking of Triple H, Taker and Dusty are just slightly ahead of The Authority’s time early on, but then a big explosion happens in some nearby trees and a big scary monstrous truck appears on the course. Cole tells us that it is “chasing the Legendmobile.” I will never not laugh when they say “Legendmobile.”
The driver appears to be some sort of angry zombie, and when they show his face on the TitanTron, everyone gets scared. They explained that they were able to get this image with their “sky drone cameras” (which they had previously shown us recording the race). It always fascinates me when they decide they need explanations for some things, but completely omit explanations for other things (like how Vince didn’t know that Hunter and Steph were in the race). Among the frightened were Shaggy and Scooby, who ran back to their food truck and shut the window to hide.
You know who wasn’t scared, though? The f*cking Undertaker, that’s who! The ghost truck rams into the Legendmobile, so Taker responds by saying “stranger, you just dug your own grave” and then ramming his own much smaller car right back into the big one, managing to bump the big one about with the same force that the ghost truck had done to him.
Then the ghost truck activates a freakin’ scorpion tail claw thing and uses it to flip the Legendmobile. Cole tries to sell us that someone might be seriously hurt, but his voice is stuck in excitement level 4 out of 10 (much like Kevin Kelly’s) so the moment really doesn’t carry the dread that it should. Dusty opens the door to exit the upside-down Legendmobile, while Taker punches through the windshield because he's the G-d damn Undertaker, but he still appears to be stuck, half in and half out.
The mysterious driver exits his truck and announces to them that “the curse of Inferno is upon you. End this race or suffer.” Dusty says that this “doesn’t seem neighborly at all” and charges the monster/ghost/whatever. He misses twice, then declares that “we gonna get funky like a monkey,” causing Cole to exclaim “vintage Dusty Rhodes.” He then promptly gets gorilla-pressed onto the track. Seeing this causes Taker to power up and he basically lifts the whole Legendmobile off of his back in order to go check on Dusty. The ghost driver gets back into his car and drives off, his warning having been clearly delivered. Taker declares that “you can run, but you can’t hide. No man or beast escapes The Undertaker.” Cartoon Undertaker is the best thing ever.

We next cut to Dusty sitting around with his ribs taped up. Standing around him are Taker, Stardust, and Goldust. Dusty insists that he just threw out his back is all, but Taker reminds him that the doctors have told him to take it easy for a while. Dusty insists that he will never give up his dream of buying his grandchildren a ranch so that they can learn to be proper cowboys and cowgirls. Fifty years in the wrestling business, including as a top star for most of the seventies and eighties and then stints as a top executive for both WCW and WWE and he can’t afford this? And Dustin and Cody won’t help him out with their salaries, either?
Speaking of Dusty’s kids, they assure him that he will recover because they have foreseen it. Cody says that they will win it for Dusty. Well… that got awkward by time this came out, didn’t?
Kofi showed up to ask Taker if Dusty’s injury means that he will pull out of the race. Taker responded by cutting a great promo on the mystery driver. Taker and the Rhodeses leave, but Kofi’s work is not done. He spots Miz and Paige walking by and asks them if they have any comment on “today’s chilling events.” Miz assures all of his fans that he is okay and that his moneymaker was undamaged. Paige shoves him out of the way and cuts a babyface promo wishing Dusty a speedy recovery. It is clear that the rumors of her and Miz not getting along are well-grounded in reality.
Shaggy and Scooby want to leave ASAP, but the others are insistent on solving the mystery. They try to appeal to Shaggy and Scooby’s sense of responsibility, which is a mistake when you realize that you’re talking to a cowardly stoner and his equally cowardly dog. They ask “what about the food truck?” to which Shaggy and Scooby respond by raiding the food truck before trying to leave, but their escape is blocked by Vince McMahon. Vince wants Mystery Inc. to solve this mystery for him, so “gang, it looks like we’ve got another mystery on our hands.”

It’s nighttime now. Velma does some research on the internet and discovers that during one of the old races on Marauder's Mountain in the 30’s a mysterious racer once showed up and screwed with everyone, damaging their cars and stuff, but then he came to Dead Man’s Curve, not knowing that it had washed away and he fell to his death and legend has it that he still haunts the area to this very day. Yeah. Dead Man’s Curve is apparently an entire section of narrow mountain road that is just missing. If I understood the earlier conversation correctly, then isn’t this still part of the current WWE track? Because I don’t think we saw anything even resembling a treacherous mountain road, and if it is part of the track, how have all of the WWE racers finished their races so far without even seeming concerned about it?
Fred decides to sniff the soil (I think they’re near the site of the Legendmobile vs. ghost truck fight now). He says it smells like rotten eggs but Velma more correctly identifies it as sulfur: a.k.a. brimstone. Mr. Qualls shows up and comments that it is “a demonic substance, if ever there was one.” Kind of like Everclear. Velma counters that sulfur is a natural chemical often used in smoke effects. Mr. Qualls admits that this is true, but less exciting. He introduces himself as the producer of the show, so that answers my questions as to who he is. Every time he is on screen they make sure to show us his teeth gleaming, complete with the standard sound effect. I don’t know if this is supposed to be a Kevin Dunn joke or not.
He wants them to back off of the case because having a mysterious, dangerous, demon will be good for ratings. He seems to think that the demon is a zombie, which Velma notes is not something anyone has said before, but they set this up and had him answer well enough that it can easily be written off as a combination of wishful thinking and standard promotional exaggeration. Mystery Inc. insists that they will solve this mystery, so he suggests that they go back to the pit hangar to talk to the various WWE Superstars.
When they arrive at the pit hangar, Daphne notes that they are seeing “Superstars and supercars.” I bet Cena’s pretty annoyed that they didn’t let him in on this one. The others go to talk to the wrestlers, but Shaggy and Scooby decide to stay put. This turns out to be a big mistake, as Stardust and Goldust show up and act extremely creepy, scaring them off. Stardust becomes possibly the first person to note that Scooby’s ability to talk is abnormal.
Shaggy and Scooby run off to hide behind a box, but they are come upon by The Undertaker. Then, in a completely serious tone of voice, The Undertaker looked at Scooby Doo and Shaggy and said “Well I’ll be. You’re the two that vanquished the Ghost Bear.” I think I need a moment to process this. And by “process this,” I mean get some Jack Daniels.

Okay. I’m back.

Taker addresses them by their old ring-names “Skinny Man and Dead Meat” but they implore him to just call them Shaggy and Scooby, and to please not take their souls away. He assures them “the bell tolls only for the demon” and tells them to just call him “Taker.”
Then El Torito shows up and uses Scooby as a base for doing some flips before finally landing on both feet on Scooby’s back. Quite the juxtaposition there.

Meanwhile, Velma is talking to Los Matadores. They don’t understand why anyone would want to screw with the race. Velma suggests that it might be about the prize money. They assure her that they would never do that because they only fight for “the honor of Los Matadores.” Then one of them leans down to kiss Velma’s hand… and as he does so he catches a whiff of the sulfur from before. Trying to be gentleman-like, he diplomatically asks her “what is that interesting scent you are assaulting my nostrils with?” Velma, flustered by the attention, attempts to flirt as only Velma can, explaining that it’s sulfur before saying “it looks like I’ve got a mystery on my hands.” I laughed my ass off at this entire thing.

Fred and Daphne approach Hunter and Steph. They met Hunter last time, but apparently Steph wasn’t at WrestleMania that year so they didn’t meet her. Hunter introduces them and Fred says that they know Steph “by reputation,” and that reputation is that she is “a champion in the ring and in the business world.” Yup. We mustn’t forget to ensure that we put Steph over as being great at absolutely everything in every medium we have. Velma shows up and snarks that Steph is also known as “the Billion Dollar Princess,” but to Daphne’s ears this is a compliment and she says “Really? That’s great!” This caused a fantastic look of disgust to come over Velma’s face. Daphne and Steph bond over fashion and having rich fathers who buy them things. They ask her about the demon and she says that the only thing she knows is that the demon “had better not get on Hunter’s bad side if he knows what’s good for him,” because apparently we’ve got to put Hunter over in every medium, too.

Vince shows up and confronts Steph about her racing. “Stephanie,” he says, “I thought we agreed that you weren’t going to compete because you had too much work to do,” as if she is a teenager and Vince doesn’t want her to join the soccer team because that will take time away from doing homework and thus hurt her grades, rather than a grown-ass woman with her own house and family. Steph insists that she can plan, organize, and compete in Motor X or whatever they’re calling it all at the same time. And even win it, too. Okay… so if Steph and Hunter and Vince are all focusing their attention here, then WHO THE HELL IS RUNNING THE WRESTLING COMPANY?
Vince responds by saying “No, Stephanie! You’re doing too much and that’s not safe. You’re out!” again treating her like a teenager. Unlike last time, though, Stephanie now responds like a teenager would, whining “but I’m Hunter’s racing partner!” Then Scooby, ridden by El Torito, stumbles through their conversation, and some brief antics ensue with them and Shaggy. Vince says “I think I can find someone else,” to which Steph responds “you can’t be serious.”
Doesn’t Hunter get a say in this? I mean… I assume that having a competent partner is an integral part of the race, and throwing rookies in there with him seems pretty unsafe. And speaking of “unsafe,” can we go back to Vince forbidding Stephanie to race anymore because it’s “not safe” for her to be doing so many different jobs at the same time, but no one has expressed any concern about Stardust and Goldust doing Tai Chi on the hood of a moving racing truck?
Mr. Qualls interrupts things to tell everyone that “dinner is served.” Everyone but Steph and Hunter leave to go to dinner (with Scooby, Shaggy, and Torito almost trampling Mr. Qualls) while Hunter remarks to Steph that “I think I’m suddenly allergic to dogs.” Wait… Vince was talking about making SCOOBY Hunter’s copilot? HE DOESN’T EVEN HAVE OPPOSABLE THUMBS!
Steph assures Hunter that Vince can’t take her out of the race that easily, so I guess our big sub-plot here will be Stephanie finally standing up to her father here in her late thirties while married and with several children. Well… better late than never.

At catering, Vince and Mr. Qualls sit down with Dusty and Taker. Dusty warns them that there is a curse on the race (apparently he really believes the ghost driver), and he warns Vince that Mr. Qualls won’t care, no matter how dangerous things get. Then Dusty storms off.
Daphne says that “Mr. Rhodes sure seems to have an axe to grind” so Taker explains to them that Dusty wanted the prize money for his family. He laments that he is apparently out of the race as well due to Dusty’s injury. Mr. Qualls freaks at this, explaining to Vince that they need Taker for ratings. Perhaps if they had done a better job of focusing on some of the other racers instead of just relying on Undertaker, the others would be able to draw ratings and they wouldn’t be in such a bad position now that a top star is leaving?
Steph suggests that Shaggy and Scooby be Taker’s partners. Vince disapproves, but Mr. Qualls insists that “teaming Undertaker with a teenager and a dog will make him an underdog, and people love an underdog.” Shaggy and Scooby walk by and Vince asks them if they’d like “to team with-“ and then gets cut off by Mr. Qualls shouting “The Undertaker!” They’d love to, but are worried that the demon might show up again, saying that this would be “a nightmare.” Taker assures them that “there’s only room for one nightmare in this race, and that’s me. Rest assured: if the demon appears again, I’ll make sure it’s his last ride.” I love this sh*t so much.

They leave the pit hangar where they find someone who I was certain was the Honkytonk Man but is apparently just a mechanic named Earl who is having trouble paying for his kid’s college expenses. Taker tells us that he is the guy who has customized all of the cars and also does some repair work. Taker wants to see his car, but it has been reduced to a pile of scrap because it apparently exploded before they could dig it out. All that they could save was the steering wheel, which “Big Earl” hands to Taker. Then The Undertaker drops to one knee and mournfully says “Lo! The Legendmobile has shed its mortal coil. Rest in peace.”
Shaggy thinks this means that they won’t be able to race (which he seems a little relieved about), but Fred offers to give Big Earl a hand repairing the car because “I’ve discovered I like ‘wrenching,’ as we car guys say.” I think Big Earl put it best when he responded to this by saying “oooookaaaayyyyy.”
Earl notes that he is “a mechanic, not a miracle-worker.” Insert Doctor McCoy joke here. He wonders how they are going to make a working car out of the pile of scrap that used to be the Legendmobile. Fred says he has an idea, and insists that they’ll have a car by morning. Taker notes a strange powder on Earl’s clothes. Velma confirms that it’s not sulfur. Rather it’s talcum powder. Earl explains that they use it for airbags or something.
Then Hunter and Steph walk out of the building in the background and Steph says “come on, Hunter. We still need to get our pre-race manicures.” The word “manicures” catches Daphne’s attention and Steph invites her to join them because “beautiful nails lead to a happier life.” Velma is clearly suspicious of Steph and Hunter. It’s left unstated, but her entire suspicious seems to be based upon the idea that Steph knows she can win because she has planned and organized everything and thus could have set this whole demon thing up to fix the race. A McMahon fixing a competition so that the winner is decided before the competition even begins? What a crazy idea!

After a short montage of the car being built it is time for “the first leg of the Muscle Moto X Off-Road Challenge.” Winning today’s race gives you a half-minute head start tomorrow. Do you mean to tell me that the results of each contest will have a clear effect on the next contest the racers are in? That sounds like a really cool idea because it makes each contest feel important and thus cause me to become emotionally invested in whether my favorites win or lose. If only there was some way that we could apply that to WWE’s other, more well-known endeavors, like wrestling. Oh who am I kidding? That would never work.

Cole announces to the crowd that due to Dusty’s injury there has been a small change to the line-up as “The Undertaker will team with Skinny Man and Dead Meat. It’s Team Taker in the Scoobinator!” I can promise you all right now that I will make an effort to use the phrase “Team Taker in the Scoobinator” in any situation where it is even remotely relevant for the rest of my life.
The Scoobinator appears to have been built from the frame of the food truck, which is good because it would be impossible for them to have whipped up an entirely new car overnight. Fred is on no sleep, and is already fading in and out when he tells Taker about the inner workings of The Scoobinator. He tells Taker that “if you want more speed, press…” and then he falls into unconsciousness.

In today’s safety update, Goldust and Stardust are safely inside the truck this time. They’re even wearing helmets and seatbelts, as is everyone else. Well… everyone except for Scooby. I’d say that he is definitely going to die if they stop short, but in the last movie we saw him fly off of a cliff and hit his head on a tree so hard that it went the whole way through the tree and he seems to have suffered no damage, so maybe he’ll be fine.
Shaggy and Scooby are wearing their ring gear for some reason. The Scoobinator is very slow, and Taker is getting quite frustrated. He’s The Undertaker, so he called it “dead weight.” I laughed. But then again I also laughed a few seconds later when Cole said that their sandwich-shaped vehicle “isn’t cutting the mustard” so I’ll laugh at just about any pun.
Skipping back to our discussion of safety for a moment, someone has apparently decided that what these unmanned camera drones needed was for Kofi Kingston to be riding on one of them to give us live reports. He is up many, many feet in the air on this device that was not designed to be stood on, moving quickly enough to keep up with the tricked-out racing trucks, WITH NO SAFETY EQUIPMENT OF ANY KIND! And he’s got to do all of this while LOOKING BACKWARDS at the camera drone flying behind him so that both his face and the moving racers can be in the shot!
THEY’RE F*CKING FLYING CAMERAS! There is no purpose to Kofi being up here in the first place! In fact Kofi being up here actually REDUCES their ability to cover the race because they now need to devote TWO camera drones to one shot: one for Kofi to stand on and then one to actually broadcast Kofi and the race. This has got to be the single worst idea that someone has ever some up with in the entire history of Scooby Doo! And think of the ground that covers!

Okay… this actually is getting to be like podracing. Hunter & Steph’s car purposely bangs into a small butte with some large rocks precariously perched on top of it that fall down and create hazards for the other cars. One of them lands on The Moscow Express, damaging it. Rusev says that “Rusev fix” and he grabs a wrench and opens a hatch in the roof and climbs out while Lana takes over the wheel. He has “magnetic boots” to decrease the chances of him falling off and allowing him to make repairs while they move at high speeds. Cool idea. Maybe someone could have given Kofi a pair?
El Torito, also in magnetic boots, climbs out of the Pamplona Especial” and leaps onto the roof of the adjacent Celtic Cruiser, landing on its hood to distract Sheamus. How did he jump that far in boots designed to prevent you from going flying off of the moving vehicle? And how stupid is he? Even in magnetic boots he will almost certainly be thrown off of the car and suffer serious injury in the case of a crash. He manages to make Sheamus veer off course and makes an impossible jump back to the Pamplona Especial. Again… in magnetic boots. I only harp on this because they went out of their way to point out that the boots were magnetic specifically to explain why they helped people stick to the outside of the vehicles… but then didn’t think through that it should be virtually impossible to jump any sort of distance in them because they’re designed to make you stick to vehicles!
Inside The Celtic Cruiser, Sheamus is quite angry. Goldust and Stardust seem to be angry at Sheamus for some reason, so Sheamus PINCHES HIS OWN EYES SHUT WHILE DRIVING. Then he tells them to “get lost,” but it turns out that they have already magically transported away.
Apparently Rusev & Lana have already almost caught up to Hunter and Steph. Hunter and Steph are winning and Daphne is rooting for them. Velma scolds her for not rooting for Shaggy and Scooby, which leads to the following exchange:
Daphne: I can have more than one favorite.
Velma: By definition… no.

The Scoobinator is amazingly close to the pack, all things considered. They all drive through a hollowed-out fallen tree trunk that leads off of a small cliff. Everyone makes it… aside from the Scoobinator, which lands right on its nose. Taker bangs around in frustration, which winds up righting the vehicle, and Team Taker in the Scoobinator take off once again.
At the front of the pack is The Company Car, followed by Too Awesome and The Moscow Express. Miz is a jerk to Paige so she bumps into The Moscow Express in a way that manages to smash Miz’s head into the wall of the cockpit… except that he is strapped into his seat, remember, so this seems like a MAJOR design flaw.
“The Demon Rig” then makes its appearance, apparently using an explosion to propel itself off of a nearby mesa and onto the track, ahead of The Company Car. As they all cross “Deadwood Bridge” (which Cole tells us is “the most dangerous part of the course”) the ghost driver gets out of his car and stands on the roof, declaring that “this race is cursed! All who oppose Inferno will perish!” Then he uses his car’s scorpion tail thing to SHOOT LASER BEAMS that SET THE F*CKING BRIDGE ON FIRE!
All of the drivers press on anyway, while Cole praises them for “facing the fire of a supernatural specter! What bravery! That’s why they’re called ’Superstars.’” We then cut to Miz panicking and crying his eyes out and engaging in wordplay that even I didn’t laugh at.
Hunter successfully passes The Demon Rig. Kofi tries to get in close but something fritzes with both the drone’s electronics and the camera signal. Hmm…
The Demon Rig then attacks them with its scorpion tail, and Daphne gets worried because “Stephanie just had her hair done this morning.” She’s wearing a f*cking helmet, Daff! Her hair was going to be screwed up no matter what. Velma notes that Vince hasn’t shown up anywhere today, which she thinks is suspicious.
Deadwood Bridge is on the verge of collapsing by the time it is approached by Team Taker in The Scoobinator. “The Undertaker does not fear the flame,” but Scooby and Shaggy do, and in their panicking, Scooby accidentally hits a big red button that engages the turbo-boosters. They make it over the bridge just as it collapses, including an utterly ridiculous jump. This caused Michael Cole to say the following: “I cannot believe what I’m seeing. Only The Undertaker could fly a sandwich out of the jaws of oblivion.”
Apparently they’re now right behind The Demon Rig. Inferno jumps onto the roof and summons a smokescreen. They turbo right through it, only to find themselves about to crash into the side of a mountain, but the boosters allow them to drive right up it and jump over the top of it (including a flip) and land on the other side… on the course, and now in first place (I guess the others must have successfully passed The Demon Rig off-screen).

We then cut to the finish line where Hunter & Steph pilot The Company Car to a victory (surprise, surprise), but Team Taker in the Scoobinator manage to turbo their way into second, barely beating out the Pamplona Especial.
We then got some interviews. Hunter & Steph cut a promo expressing confidence in their victory, no matter how many demons or ghosts show up. Lana & Rusev finished in fifth place. Lana berates Rusev saying that he should “wear frilly pink dresses so that people know you are not the Russian champion but a little bunny-man masquerading as the Russian champion.” She storms off, and Rusev shouts that “Rusev not take you to the outlet mall this weekend.” Real Rusev>animated Rusev. Then Taker cut a very Takerish promo until he saw a waitress walk by with a plate full of meatballs, asked “are those McMahon’s Mania Meatballs?” and then ran off to get some.
Then Miz cut his promo in which he predictably blamed everything on Paige. She showed up and they argued which resulted in her giving him what can only be described as a “sucker-monkeyflip,” which sent him flying halfway across the room and into the table of food. This upset Rusev, who was about to get some food so he threw Miz onto a different table. Then Miz jumped off of the table and onto Rusev’s back. Rusev eventually managed to throw Miz off, but his momentum carried him right into Hunter and Steph’s table, spilling Steph’s drink all over her. Hunter tells Rusev that this was a “bad move” and leaps to his wife’s defense, ripping off his suit to reveal that he is wearing his gear underneath it (which makes sense because everyone else was wearing their gear- or in Miz and Sheamus’ case their gear plus their t-shirt- the whole time, too).
Hunter and Rusev wind up in the old Greco-Roman knuckle-lock and stumble off-screen. Meanwhile Paige leaps into the screen, landing on a table behind Steph, then jumping over Steph to land on Miz and putting him in some sort of double armlock while still remaining on his back. Hunter and Rusev bump into the cameraman, whose camera bounces across the floor, right between Los Matadores who are, for some unexplained reason, sitting on the floor.
Then Vince shows up and demands to know “What in the name of Gorgeous George is going on here?!” and everything stops. Lana says that she wants a new partner. So does Miz. So does Rusev, and so does Paige. Before Vince books the obvious switcharoo, Mr. Qualls shows up to show Vince the ratings for the first race. They’re very good, and he insists that the controversy will only make them go up. Instead of the expected switcharoo, Vince makes Lana and Paige a team and makes Miz and Rusev a team. I didn’t see that one coming. Miz complains that Rusev “smells like borscht” which was a lot less funny than if he had just said that he smells bad. Vince tells him he can either team with Rusev or he’s fired.

As they all walk off we see Dusty standing in the background. We zoom in on him and he starts talking directly to the camera, giving a speech about how the race “has turned brothers against sisters” and other bad things. Dustin and Cody appear behind him and he tells them that “the curse of the demon is only starting.”
During this all, I couldn’t help but notice that Dusty’s ribs weren’t taped up anymore. Hmm… Maybe the whole injury was a work?

Velma wants to go over the evidence but Fred is still asleep and Daphne is going to meet with Steph about working for WWE. Apparently Steph thinks that Daphne could design wrestling gear. Velma grouses, so Daphne calls her out on her attitude towards Steph. Steph shows up, and she and Daphne leave, making Velma sad.

Shaggy and Scooby wake up hungry in the middle of the night and decide to go to The Scoobinator to get some food. The racers have apparently just parked their vehicles outside where anyone can get at them instead of in the presumably safer and more private pit-hangar that we saw before. Fortunately, this puts them in the right place at the right time to see Inferno trying to sabotage The Company Car.
Inferno chases them. They come across The Miz, out for a jog in the middle of the night, repeating the motivational mantra from the last movie of “who’s awesome? I’m awesome!” Also like in the last movie, Miz tries to fight the monster but unlike last time he manages to hold his own, including locking his opponent in a Figure 4 Leg Lock and even no-selling bumps onto asphalt. The commotion wakes up some of the others, and Taker, Paige, Fred, Daphne, and Velma arrive, causing Inferno to retreat.
Everyone is summoned together to watch Big Earl check out what, if anything, Inferno did to The Company Car. He says that the oil line was cut. Then Taker congratulates Shaggy and Scooby for preventing the demon from sabotaging any of the other cars.
Velma finds another clue… a large pair of footprints that it seems completely ridiculous that none of them saw before. The footprints are outlined in talcum powder, which Hunter says is there because he was checking the airbags right after the race. Vince tells Steph that he doesn’t think she should race tomorrow because Inferno might attack. Steph says that she hopes that he does because she is the one driving tomorrow. Hunter and Steph leave, and we pull back to Dusty Rhodes, peering out from behind a car.

We then cut to the beginning of the second race! It is clear from the beginning that neither newly-shuffled team is getting along well. Lana and Miz seem to be the only ones of the four who are even trying to make an effort. Velma spots Vince leaving the race right at the beginning.
In The Celtic Cruiser, the Dust Brothers are once again annoying Sheamus. Stardust even blows powder into Sheamus’ face. WHILE HE’S DRIVING! Sheamus wishes that they would go bother someone else, so they disappear.

So apparently the course leads right off the edge of a cliff and into a lake. Cole acts like he has no idea why the track is like this, but as soon as Hunter and Steph plunge off the cliff without a care he seems to somehow know that all of the cars can transform into hovercraft. That was really weird. Like Cole was purposely trying to swerve us.
Anyway, the seatbelts all come equipped with flotation devices, so that’s another win in the safety category for WWE.
Also, The Demon Rig can be turned into a submarine.

Paige accuses Lana of holding back so that Rusev can win… and Lana laughs evilly and admits it, saying “Ha! Yes. For the glory of mother Russia I will make sure Rusev is champion.” This was fantastic. Paige was about to call Lana a naughty word when suddenly The Demon Rig emerged from the water in front of them.
To put over how strong it is, we see it smash through a bunch of rock formations in the middle of the river. It then used its scorpion tail to pick up The Celtic Cruiser and fling it far backwards. I mention this in order to tell you that Michael Cole described the flung vehicle as “a flaccid flapjack.” The Demon Rig then set out after Paige and Lana, but Rusev turned around to go save them, sacrificing his third-place position to save his beloved.
The Demon Rig (Boat? Submarine? Whatever) now bears down on The Company Car. Hunter turns around and, also in the magnetic boots, makes an impossible jump onto the roof of The Demon Vehicle to confront Inferno. He asks “You wanna play games?” and then flexed his pecs, causing his suit to shred due to his bristling muscles, revealing his gear beneath it. This was made even funnier by the fact that the safety harness he was wearing in the car OVER HIS SUIT stayed on, as did his helmet and the magnetic boots. The confrontation doesn’t last long, though, as Inferno gets Hunter in an arm wringer, then tosses him off of the boat… but Steph has zoomed back just in time to save Hunter (you know… the same spot they just did with Lana and Rusev)… except in this case it probably would have been a lot less painful for Hunter to land in the water than to land on his back on the hard metal top of The Company Car/Hovercraft.
The Demon Rig starts to ram into The Company Car, but The Authority are saved when The Demon Rig is itself rammed into by Team Taker in The Scoobinator. They come to a fork in the river with a big sign saying that the race continues down this path, but The Demon Rig rams The Scoobinator down the other path. Then it rams its scorpion tail into The Scoobinator’s engine, damaging it. Then we find out why the race continued down the other path instead of this one: because this one ends in a huge waterfall, which Team Taker in the Scoobinator are now helplessly drifting towards! OH NO!
Kofi tries to make the save but we once again establish that The Demon Rig interferes with the electronics of the camera drone he is riding on, and it causes the drone to smash into some rocks nearby. Kofi lands safely on the land… and fortunately, the camera part of the destroyed drone, as well its broadcasting system, still works.

Meanwhile, back on the course, they have come to the end of the water part and now turn into cars again, somehow managing to do so while not losing any speed at all. Hunter and Steph just barely edge out Los Matadores for the win. I am completely certain that this is the only time I will ever type that sentence.
Meanwhile, Taker is raiding the Scoobinator’s kitchen for anything that can help them escape from their predicament. He looks through the cabinets, tossing about various pots and pans, before he finds a chain of sausages. I am willing to suspend my disbelief that they couldn’t get the heavy kitchen equipment out of the Scoobinator, but if they’re trying to win a race you would think that they would have at least taken all of the food and utensils and pots off of the thing to shed weight, right?
Anyway, Team Taker in The Scoobinator goes over the edge of the waterfall, crashing into the rocks below where The Scoobinator explodes in a huge ball of fire, meaning that I will never again have an excuse to say “Team Taker in The Scoobinator” because Team Taker is dead and The Scoobinator has been destroyed.

But no! While The Scoobinator might have been destroyed, Team Taker lives on! How? Because The Undertaker saved Scooby Doo and Shaggy by using a chain of sausages as a lasso which he managed to throw around a rocky protrusion from the walls of the canyon. That’s a sentence I never in a million years imagined I would type.

That night Vince declares that the race must go on, even though several competitors were almost murdered today by a raving madman bent on preventing the race from happening. Everyone is excited by this news except for The Undertaker who is sad because he can no longer win because he doesn’t have a car. He explains that “I was racing for all of my little creatures of the night. The little Undertaker fans all across the world.” Undertaker calls his fans “the creatures of the night?” Huh. I wonder where they got that name from. He then says that he was going to use his share of the prize money “to create The Undertaker’s Comedy Theater and Puppet Jubilee.”
Hunter and Steph got to cut a promo in front of everyone. They were unhappy because no one cheered. Hunter called them losers and accused them of being sore losers. Sheamus retorted that “this whole thing smells like a stinking angle that favors just one team.” They deny it but no one believes them, so Steph says that they will prove it by beating everyone else without the benefit of the head-start they won in this disputed race.

Mystery Inc. confront Vince as to where he goes during the races. He replies that he has other things to do “including running the entire WWE.” Yeah… about that. So why the hell are all of these people over here doing this instead of wrestling?
Daphne goes off to talk to Steph about the possibility of Vince having set up the whole Inferno thing to help Steph win, even without Steph’s knowledge. They took this opportunity to make it clear to us, in no uncertain terms, that Vince in no way spoils his children, and in fact makes them work extra hard to earn everything they have (especially Steph) and that there is absolutely no nepotism in the WWE whatsoever.
Then Steph insults Daphne for not being quite as filthy rich as the McMahons are, but she quickly claims she only said it because of the stress of the race getting to her. Daphne goes to talk to Velma about this. Velma warns Daphne that “thess Superstar Divas have been known to turn on each other.” She also referred to Steph as “Miss Bossy McWrestlepants,” which is definitely a line I will be stealing for my Raw reviews.

Shaggy, Scooby, and El Torito are f*cking around in their motel room because, with The Scoobinator destroyed, they don’t have to race anymore. Or so they thought. It turns out that Fred, Daphne, and The Undertaker tricked out the Mystery Machine for tomorrow’s race.

It’s now time for the third and final race, which will not only involve the “famous Dead Man’s Curve” but will also involve “parachuting” to the finish line. They figured out that The Demon Rig is at least sometimes being steered by remote, which is what was causing the camera drones to freak out by crossing streams with them or whatever. Therefore they whipped up a remote that they’re going to use to mess with it. And by “they,” I mean all of Mystery Inc., who will be riding along for this race. Undertaker told them to buckle their seatbelts.
Stardust and Goldust are randomly playing the bagpipes and violin respectively. This was annoying the hell out of me, but for once their actions were not annoying Sheamus. Hooray for teamwork, I guess.

The Demon Rig shows up and Inferno vows to throw them all off the mountain. The moment that Fred went to use the remote The Demon Rig happened to ram into them. This caused two things to happen: Fred dropped the remote, and the Mystery Machine bumped into the side of the canyon, resulting in a tree branch ripping off their parachute, which Velma points out that they need to survive the jump off of Dead Man’s Curve at the end of the race.
Lana sends Rusev a signal, at which point Rusev abandons the wheel of The Moscow Express and leaps over to The Demon Rig while Lana jumps out the window of Too Awesome in order to do the same… but first she sets off a smoke grenade inside the car! Rusev tells Inferno “I claim demon car for the glory of Russia!” but the scorpion tail knocks them off. They land on the hood of The Moscow Express, and the next thing we see is a cut to Miz being thrown off of it, landing on the hood of Too Awesome. Miz and Paige decide to work together and decide that getting at Inferno is more important than winning. They text everyone else and they all decide to work together. Hooray!
Everyone got to say an action phrase or catchphrase as they teamed up against The Demon Rig. Torito got a short fight scene that ended in him being kicked back into Pamplona Especial… at which point Torito and Los Matadores did their coordinated pose even in the middle of this dangerous situation. Meanwhile the commentary started to get annoying because of how… well… condescending it was. We can see that they’re teaming up. We don’t need Michael Cole to tell us that “it’s like tag-teaming on wheels!” And just based on how crazy this whole situation is, I would think that it goes without saying that Michael Cole has “never seen anything like this before in [his] life.”
Then Sheamus pulled out a sword that was apparently just lying on the floor of his car, told one of the Rhodeses to take the wheel, jumped over to The Demon Rig, and cut the scorpion tale off. Then he got a short fight scene where he, too, was tossed back onto the hood of his own vehicle and everyone had to stop to avoid a pile-up. The Mystery Machine had to swerve to avoid plowing into all of them, but they survived by doing a rainbow on the side of the mountain.
They got close enough to use the remote again and it worked until Inferno figured out what was happening and hopped back into the car to start driving manually. He immediately bumped into the Mystery Machine, causing the remote to go flying out the window and smash on the ground. Fred was sad, but Taker said that it was “time for a new plan.” His plan is for Shaggy and/or Scooby to drive while he goes to fight Inferno. He went over to The Demon Rig and cut a Taker promo on Inferno, so Inferno came out to fight.

Back in the Mystery Machine, Fred said he had yet another plan. All he needed was for Shaggy and Scooby to get them to Dead Man’s Curve. They pointed out that this sounded like a terrible plan, but Daphne said that she knew they could do it because they have eaten so many of those D.C. Pretzels that are an exact map of the road. WELL HOW THE F*CK IS THAT GOING TO HELP?!
1. As we’ve seen, Shaggy and Scooby are not the type of people who study every last detail of their food before they eat it.
2. And even if they were, in order to know when they should slow down because Dead Man’s Curve is coming up, they would need to know where on the route they already are.
3. And even if they did, knowing when the turns in a road are coming is MUCH DIFFERENT than DRIVING IT IN A GIANT VEHICLE AT HIGH SPEED IN A HIGH-PRESSURE SITUATION!

But apparently Shaggy and Scooby decide that they can do this because of the pretzels. Fine. Then how about ONLY ONE OF YOU DRIVES THE DAMN CAR (preferably the one the physical capacity to grip the steering wheel)! There should never, ever, be two people with their feet on the pedals!

So we come to Dead Man’s Curve. First The Company Car goes off and releases its parachutes, followed by The Demon Rig. Then the Mystery Machine approaches and Fred encourages them to not stop even though they don’t have a parachute. So they go over the edge… and apparently Fred put some grappling hooks on the Mystery Machine without telling anyone that he fires off and they catch on the bottom of the Demon Rig. Why didn’t he tell them the f*cking plan instead of making them all worry… and why did the others think that this race or stopping Inferno or whatever was worth what seemed like CERTAIN DEATH?!
And, of course, there is the fact that this whole thing shouldn’t work because adding their weight to that of The Demon Rig should just overtax its parachute and KILL ALL OF THEM IN THE CRASH. Instead we are told that it is making them fall faster, so they overtake The Company Car in first place. With that much extra weight? I still don’t buy that they shouldn’t all end up like The Scoobinator did.

Inferno jumps from The Demon Rig down onto the Mystery Machine. He lands with his face on the windshield. Both cars make a perfect landing on the other side of the gorge and Fred releases the grappling hooks. Taker has now gotten behind the wheel of The Demon Rig. We get a quick establishing shot of everyone else making the jump, with the other cars somehow right behind Hunter and Steph despite Hunter and Steph having made the jump ahead of the Mystery Machine and The Demon Rig. Then we cut back to Inferno on the windshield of the Mystery Machine. He vows that they won’t escape him, and, in one of the funniest moments in the movie, Shaggy turns on the windshield wipers, which smack Inferno in the face with every pass.

The Mystery Machine crosses the finish line but then stops short, sending Inferno flying into the pretzel stand. Taker crosses the finish line in The Demon Rig, then goes to fight Inferno, giving him The Last Ride. Taker declares that “that was for Dusty” as if Dusty were crippled by Inferno’s attack or something. Shaggy and Scooby think it’s over but Inferno gets back up and charges at Taker… who easily stops him, telling him that he will “rest in peace” and hits him with a Tombstone Piledriver. Taker does the pin while Shaggy and Scooby hug and jump up and down in the background, making odd noises.

So they unmask Inferno and it’s… Triple H. Even though WE SAW HIM FIGHTING THE DEMON EARLIER ON, and WE SAW HIM DRIVING THE COMPANY CAR AS IT MADE THE JUMP!
They explain that there was an inflatable Triple H dummy in the car and Steph was driving it via remote control, and that sometimes Steph was in the costume so that Hunter could fight it to allay suspicion. Okay… THEN WHO WAS DRIVING BOTH CARS WHILE THAT WAS HAPPENING?!
The whole talcum powder thing was explained as follows: when Hunter was in the suit working on the car in the parking lot, what he was doing was switching the airbag from the Steph dummy to the Hunter dummy, and he cut the oil line to cover his tracks. If they needed to do that, why not just do it in a private garage?
Vince want to know why Steph did it. She says it was because she both wanted to win and to make the whole thing a success so that Vince would be proud of her, but Vince says he has always been proud of her and they hug and who gives a sh*t anymore? So Hunter and Steph are arrested. Velma checks how Vince is feeling now that he knows the terrible truth behind what his son-in-law and daughter have done… and Vince just brushes it off and says that his lawyers will have them free in twenty-four hours, despite having just said that they would have to pay for their crimes. Shaggy and Scooby give their winnings to Dusty and other corny sh*t happens. The end. Finally.

This was a fun watch for a bit, but once the craziness started in the third race, I was already getting tired of it. The voice-acting was fine and the animation was good, but creatively this was a huge mess. Like I said, I was enjoying the first half to three quarters of it, but even during that time I felt that there was a whole bunch of pointless crap that was dragging it down. Every time I saw Goldust and Stardust do… well… ANYTHING, I couldn’t help but wonder why they were even in the movie in the first place. During the second race I felt that the fight scenes dragged on WAY too long, and were often very repetitive, both between and within the various fight scenes.
I also didn’t like The Demon Rig being quite so ridiculous with laser beams and stuff. I don’t mind laser beams and explosions in my Scooby Doo if it’s done right, like it was in Scooby Doo Mystery Incorporated, but a large part of the reason why it worked on that show was that the mysteries that they would solve from episode to episode were almost self-parody, so it was okay for the technology used by the villains (and the heroes in Fred’s traps, for that matter) to be completely ridiculous, because the show was actually about the overall mystery they were building up in the background and about the growth of the characters. The week-to-week mysteries with costumed ne’er-do-wells were there to be entertaining and to make the show feel like Scooby Doo while they tried some very un-Scooby Doo things like episodic storytelling and character development. But that wasn’t the case here. Here the focus was all on the threat of Inferno and his Demon Rig, so the fight scenes were serious business and we were to believe that the characters truly were in danger. Thus the laser beams and stuff felt out of place, and not just for Mystery Inc. They were out of place for WWE, too. In fact, everything about this setting was out of place for both of them, and as a result, every time something happened my brain could not help but wonder why these people were doing these things. Since when are all WWE employees mechanical experts? Why is The Undertaker driving around in a pimped-out car? Why is Kofi Kingston a reporter instead of hanging out with the other wrestlers? Why can these cars turn into hovercraft? WHY THE F*CK IS ANY OF THIS HAPPENING?!
So if these elements hurt the movie so much, why were they in here in the first place? My theory on that is also exactly where I think this movie went wrong: They didn’t write a mystery. They wrote an action movie. There was a mysterious element to it, sure, but the focus never felt like it was on trying to figure out who Inferno was and what he was after as opposed to when he might attack and the inevitable battles with him during the races and the danger therein. I was actually very impressed throughout the first half because they seemed to have done a great job building up a lot of potential suspects, but then I realized that 99% of the evidence I was accumulating was based on things people said rather than on physical evidence being discovered and analyzed. It’s like bugging a suspect’s house and waiting for him or her to slip up and say something incriminating rather than using detective work and forensic evidence to determine who committed the crime. Instead of focusing on a good mystery like the first movie, they instead focused on things to do in their action sequences, hence we got Hunter hulking out of his suit and Sheamus randomly pulling out a sword, and why the magnetic boots got dragged down from being a great idea to being a problem (although I still don’t understand why Goldust and Stardust had powers of teleportation).
That is why this failed: because Scooby Doo is ultimately supposed to be a mystery, but instead of Scooby and the gang helping their friends in WWE solve a mystery we a got a completely wacky, out of place, action story with WWE Superstars doing the action while Shaggy and Scooby provided comic relief. You might enjoy renting this for the many “what the f*ck? Did I just see that?” scenes, but if you’re looking an enjoyable Scooby Doo mystery or an enjoyable WWE story, look elsewhere.