SCOOBY-DOO & BATMAN: THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD [2018]

 HOLY JINKIES, BATMAN!!! 

What would the Halloween Countdown BE without Scooby-Doo?!?!?!  I adore Scooby-Doo!  And I also adore the Batman:  The Brave and the Bold series.  So I nearly plotzed when I first heard there was a mash-up movie of both of them out there!  So naturally, I was afraid I was in for a letdown.  Luckily, this was great!  Mystery Inc. is in the middle of investigating a mystery involving ghost puppets when they are joined by the Caped Crusader.  Freddie sets up one of his famous ghost traps which Batman unfortunately gets caught in.  Nevertheless, the gang manages to catch and unmask the ghosts who turn out to be . . . the Martian Manhunter and Detective Chimp!  Batman reappears and tells the Scooby gang that they've passed the test and are now eligible to join the Mystery Analysts of Gotham consisting of the greatest detectives in town: 

Batman, Martian Manhunter, Detective Chimp, The Question, Black Canary and Plastic Man.  Along the way, the Riddler pulls a caper and the Mystery Analysts of Gotham take him on . . . as well as a gate-crashing Aquaman ("Outrageous!!!") who is told by Batman that membership is invitation only to detectives . . . but thanks for the help.  Scoob and the gang decide to help Batman with his one and only unsolved case.  When Bats was knee-high to a bathopper in his "year one", he encountered Professor Milo whose wonky teleportation machine accidentally killed Milo's assistant Leo Scarlett.  Suddenly, an alarm comes from Gotham Chemical Storage warehouse where some rare isotopes have been stolen.  The Mystery Analysts arrive to find a huge red ghost called The Crimson Cloak vowing to take revenge on Batman for causing it's death.  Looks like it's the ghost of Leo Scarlett.  The Mystery Analysts travel to Arkham Asylum to question the Riddler who, it turns out, was the second assistant of Professor Milo who survived that night.  The Crimson Cloak materialises and kills the power; releasing every villain from their cells and our heroes must battle just about every single Batman villain there is! 

Detective Harvey Bullock attempts to arrest Batman and Mystery Inc. upon finding evidence which seems to implicate our heroes in the isotope theft.  Bats takes the Scooby gang to the Batcave (blindfolded, of course) where he leaves them in safety so he can go investigate the whole mess.  Batman & Aquaman are captured by the Crimson Cloak.  Viewing this on the Bat computer screens, Mystery Inc. each dons the display costumes of all Batman's sidekicks and races to the rescue!  We're talking Scooby as Ace the Bat Hound, Velma as Robin, Freddie as Batman (Year One costume), Daphne as Batgirl and Shaggy as Nightwing!!!  Does it get any better than this?!?!?!!!!!

This was super fun for this Scooby AND DC Comics fan!  The BATMAN:  THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD series was one of my favourites and it should've gone on for many more seasons!  Here we have the exact same vibe as that series combined with the spooky adventures of Scooby-Doo and the gang and the mesh perfectly.  We're even given more than we had a right to expect during the Arkham Asylum jailbreak sequence when every Bat Villain you can think of (and some you can't . . . I mean they even dug up Dr. Double X!!!) to surround our helpless heroes.  This movie is already 4 years old but I still hold out hope that the powers-that-be will someday make a sequel because the Scooby Doo and Batman: The Brave & the Bold worlds need to ride again!

  OUTRAGEOUS!!!!!