User reviews

So disappointed. I wasn't expecting much though to be honest. 'Scooby Doo on Zombie Island' and the few films that followed it - 'Scooby Doo and the Witches Ghost', 'Scooby Doo and the Alien Invaders' - were actually GOOD. But 'Zombie Island' was far and away the best. They updated the whole Scooby Gang, filled them out a bit, gave them something a little more three dimensional to work with, modern clothes, careers etc. But best of all, was the writing - it was solid, and entertaining and even as a grown up person, I still enjoy watching those movies. So then they go and do THIS. I'm being very generous giving this a 5. It is a typical, cheap, slap up sequel that distorts the original story, has no continuity - it is just plain old lazy. The animation is cheap and tired, the gang are back in their frankly ancient garb again. This is a vastly inferior offering.

Look, Scooby Doo is part of my life, it's like comfort food. I am a fully grown up person now, bordering on middle age. I have small children, and I would follow Scooby and Shaggy off a cliff. Their enormous sandwiches make me laugh every.darn.time even though the gag is so over used. But honestly, don't tarnish a timeless classic by churning out these cheap, poorly written, tired old straight to DVD jaunts that bank on people watching them simply because we love Scooby Doo. Take a good, hard look at the original zombie island film and take notes - THAT is how you keep a franchise like this going. Please, please, no more cheap, badly written, badly animated sequels.

It's not the same without Mindy Cohn. It's also unclear why Mindy isn't involved she publicly stated that at the minimum Kate Micucci and herself would be sharing voicing duties, instead of Mindy doing it 100%, for some reason.

Nothing against Kate as I enjoy her voice work elsewhere and her live acting. But Mindy is the closest to the original casting and has it down. Kate comes across as wrong for a number of reasons.

Otherwise it's nice to see a Scooby sequel; let alone on a modern version of a classic story.

What better way to get into the Halloween season than with a new entry into the long-running Scooby Doo franchise? This claims to be a sequel to the original Zombie Island film, but it's unique enough that it doesn't require that kids (or adults) watch the 1998 film first or have any knowledge about it. In fact, you could just accept the fact that the gang were on this island before and that many years ago they solved a mystery there....as Mystery Inc. is known to do.

In recent years, Warner Brothers has made strange decisions in redesigning the characters and changing the animation style. However, I'm quite happy that the animation and design of this film is very close to the original Scooby Doo cartoons. Frank Welker, AKA: the original Fred, is back, as is Matthew Lillard who, taking over from the late Casey Kasem and Billy West and has been acting as/voicing Shaggy since 2002.

The plot lures you in with what you think will be a pretty straight forward story, as far as Scooby Doo cartoons go, but then it hits you with something entirely different, which I appreciated. Its very funny, entertaining, good for all ages, but still at 80 minutes it felt a little long. It could have been condensed to an hour. Overall, a pretty good entry in the Scooby Doo brand. I give this film a 6 out of 10.

A major disappointment I'm afraid to say. Such a wasted opportunity. I usually love all the Scooby-Doo DTV movies, but Return to Zombie Island did not impress me. You can't help but compare it to the original Zombie Island, which is just brilliant.

This sequel isn't worthy of association in my books. I don't want to spoil anything so I won't go into too much detail, but the supernatural elements are practically discarded. Instead we get a plot that's contrived & boring, and jokes that are hit and miss (mostly miss). Also, the way Velma is written in this movie is an affront to her character. Yes she's a skeptic, but you can be a skeptic without being an insufferable know-it-all.

On the whole, the children will probably enjoy it, but for those of us who grew up with the original, Return to Zombie Island is a wasted attempt to capitalise on the nostalgia of the original movie. If, like me, you love the original Zombie Island, skip this mess.

Fred had sold the Mystery Machine and Mystery Inc had closed up shop. The gang is sad except for Shaggy and Scooby who are more interested in their food and swear the rest of the gang to have no more mysteries. Shaggy wins a vacation from his favorite TV personality Elvira in an oddly convenient lottery draw. Fred, Daphne, and Velma are desperate to keep their promise despite the obvious mystery all around them.

I love the first half where the gang is avoiding the mystery. It's a fun premise for the Scooby gang. The second half has the issue of rebooting the premise and having it lose narrative drive. It refers to the 1998 movie which I've not seen. Quite frankly, this is two separate episodes. The comedy comes from two different directions. The mystery loses steam in the second half and the movie loses cohesion. I really love the premise of the first half. If only...

A dump on an absolute classic and a colossal disappointment. Terrible writing, dumbed down characters, and a horrendous twist that gives the middle finger to all the fans of the original. My Worst Movie of 2019

I got this on DVD from my public library, it was free so I thought I'd give it a try just for fun. I am writing this review only so I can recall that I watched it, please vote it "not helpful" so it never gets much attention from prospective viewers.

I could tell within the first 15 minutes that I didn't have the urge to watch it all, so I skipped to the last 10 minutes or so to see how they tied the story up and what the supposed Zombies really were. We all have pet peeves, Velma the smart one uttered one of mine when she said "If I WAS that type of person..." which is clearly poor grammar, it should be "If I WERE that type of person..." so what are the filmmakers teaching our young viewers?

Anyway there are a few scary things for really small children, I'd estimate the target audience would be kids 9 to 12 years old. I am a bit past that.

4/10 - an uninspired and rather bland mystery is a disappointment to the beloved franchise

As a direct sequel to Scooby Doo On Zombie Island, it doesn't work. As a Scooby movie on its own, it's amazing. There's a lot of callbacks to various Scooby projects, and it's just plain fun to watch. I would've made a different commemoration for Scooby Doo's 50th anniversary, but I still think it does the job.

Belated sequel to Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island (1998), made for the franchise's fiftieth anniversary. The 1998 movie is credited with reinvigorating Scooby-Doo at a time when the IP was struggling. It's one of the most popular of Scooby movies, largely due to its use of legitimate horror moments, and placing the genuine supernatural at the fore. Any sequel was going to have an uphill struggle as far as fans were concerned. Sure enough, fan response in the main ranged from 'meh', to downright hate. Chief criticisms were retconning elements from the first film, characterisations of the leads, and a generally poor plot.

Return to Zombie Island isn't just a follow-up to the 1998 film; it's also a sequel to Scooby-Doo! And the Curse of the 13th Ghost (released 7 months earlier), with the dual role of maintaining consistency with that film, and carrying on the legacy of a revered classic. However, On Zombie Island and Curse of the 13th Ghost are two very different movies, and any sequel trying to be true to both was always going to have its work cut out. In the end we get a film tonally consistent with its immediate predecessor, but with callbacks to the horror of the 1998 film. However, some of those horror elements have been rewritten to fit the narrative of the current movies, which has inevitably led to accusations of 'watering down'. It's true that retelling those events in the current style may have rendered them less dark, but the essence pretty much survives (although there are aspects that have been overtly rewritten, to perhaps be more 'family friendly'). Characterisations are perfectly in-line with the current movies. I've seen it said that the five lead characters are now parodies of themselves. I think that's true (but no less enjoyable), and Frank Welker, Grey DeLisle, Matthew Lillard, and Kate Micucci nail it as ever. As for plot, whilst there are some inconsistencies with On Zombie Island, this movie does stay consistent with its own retelling of those events. It makes sense to see this as a reboot/sequel; flashbacks retell the 1998 movie, whilst the rest is a sequel to that version. In that light, and as its own thing, I enjoyed it. 7.5/10.

I thought this would be a cool sequel to the best Scooby Doo movie ever. I was wrong...so wrong. Just don't bother with it. Just watch Zombie Island

I bought the original "Zombie Island" Scooby-Doo! adventure for my son on DVD, and then we happened to come across this 2019 revisit to the island. I must say that my son was quite thrilled to get to sit down and watch this one.

I, on the other hand, wasn't as thrilled, but still, I did sit down to watch it, knowing quite well what I was getting myself into, as Hanna-Barbera never breaks the Scooby-Doo! formula by an inch. But still, the animated movie promised zombies, and I am a fan of anything zombiesque.

Turns out that "Scooby-Doo: Return to Zombie Island" was actually an entertaining animated movie, despite of it being very, very true to the 'how-to-make-a-Scooby-Doo-animated-movie' formula. But hey, at least this is part of the charm of the Scooby-Doo! franchise. You know what you get.

The animation and art style in the 2019 "Scooby-Doo: Return to Zombie Island" was quite good, and definitely helped keeping my interest ablaze. However, the storyline was faltering and wavering at times and I did feel my interest waning at times. And unfortunately there just wasn't all that much zombie action throughout the course of "Scooby-Doo: Return to Zombie Island".

It is, of course, always a nice treat for the audience to have Frank Welker, Grey Griffin, Matthew Lillard and Kate Micucci doing the voices in this animated Scooby-Doo! adventures. But I will say that "Scooby-Doo: Return to Zombie Island" held a wonderful surprise for me, because it had none other than the Mistress of the Dark herself as a cameo in the show - Elvira (aka Cassandra Peterson). Now that was a fabulous surprise, and it makes it worth to sit through this animated adventure, if for nothing else.

Yeah, you know what you get, and the ending of the mystery is, well... I don't even have to say anything, because you also already know how it ends. Yep, following the blueprint to the letter.

But it was enjoyable nonetheless, and hence I am rating "Scooby-Doo: Return to Zombie Island" a score of six out of ten stars.

Story is very bland and uninspired. Sure they mention quite a lot from the first movie, but NEVER took it back to the things that made the first one unique. A complete waste of time, and a VERY disrespectful sequel to Zombie Island.

Scooby Doo animations are so cool, so, whenever there's new one, I always put it on the first place to watch. I don't care people call it cartoon or whatever the term they use to call it and also I know that there are a lot of people who don't like Scooby Doo (even hate) and talk a lot of bad things about it, but as for me, Scooby Doo animations are one of the best ones that are so enjoyable.

Scooby Doo: Return to Zombie Island is also a good one to enjoy. I like vampires, zombies those kinds of films, and so, the title has the word zombie in it, hence that's the reason why I watched this animation. That being said, this one is zombie related film and zombies aren't beautiful. That I know. But the animation team made it uglier than they look. I know that it is what zombies look like, but I feel like if they were not that much ugly, it'd be great. (This is just my opinion only, btw.)

What I don't like the most is that Fred is missing Mystery Machine so much. I understand that it's very hurt if you lost someone or something you care or you love most. But, seeing Fred being that much into it, it really made me felt very uncomfortable. Maybe the act to describe how much he is missing isn't that much good. So, if they could do it in somehow better than this, it might be great.

Overall is that the plot is kind of not that good which makes this animation kind of inferior to the previous Scooby Doo animations, but some scenes are very funny. I laughed out loud. If the plot was better than this, it would be better. But the current one also makes a fine animation. I kind of enjoyed it completely.

It sucked so bad that I didn't even finish watching it.

Not only were there inaccuracies as well as terrible explanations for the events of the first movie but this was a complete tone and character shift for the characters and story.

I am 26 years old and a HUGE Scooby Doo fan, but this was an utter disgrace! Zombie Island is all my time favorite Scooby Doo Movie, I even named my daughter Lena after the character. Watching this made me want to cry and it was so lame and cheesy. If you are going to do a sequeal you need to make it tie into with the first one. This movie was all over the place.