WHO LET THIS DOG OUT?

Byline: David Kronke Film Critic

IF YOU'RE going to spend $90 million to make a movie version of ``Scooby-Doo'' - exponentially more money than was ever spent on the hours of cheesy animated episodes - it might be a good idea to use a script that doesn't read like it came from the show's season-seven reject pile.

On the other hand, if you have nothing but contempt for the entire enterprise - and its undiscerning fans - then do what you will. Hence, ``Scooby-Doo'': an overwrought adaptation of the modestly silly Saturday-morning cartoon of the late '60s and '70s.

The relentless poor thinking behind this project almost plays like an intentional joke. Like that other notorious revisionist megadud, ``The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle,'' it treats its characters - average nobodies in the TV series - like celebrities, and warped ones at that. Freddy (Freddie Prinze Jr.) is fatuously narcissistic; Daphne's (Sarah Michelle Gellar) a pampered, disaster-prone priss. Even Velma's (Linda Cardellini) uber-intelligence is treated as a kind of dysfunction.

Which leaves us, of course, with Scooby-Doo, the hyperkinetic Great Dane who speaks rith rots of R's (as did ``The Jetsons' '' Astro before him, both originally voiced by the late Don Messick), and eternally fried-brain hippie Shaggy (Matthew Lillard, in an impressively dead-on imitation). At one point in the movie, Shaggy declares he loves the name ``Mary Jane,'' but based on his nonstop case of the munchies and the copious amounts of smoke that pour from his van, the Mystery Machine, you wonder if it's just the name that he loves. (This is actually the film's most subtle gag commenting on the old TV show.)

The barely coherent plot (this movie's too hip to make sense) concerns the gang hunting for clues to an alien-cult brainwashing scheme at Spooky Island, run by a very mild eccentric (Rowan Atkinson, utterly wasted). There's a lot of narrative wheel-spinning and product placement and gratuitous art direction and music-video sequences marking time until the allegedly splashy finale. Even my stepdaughters were underwhelmed.

``Scooby-Doo'' takes an initially amusing swipe at Scrappy Doo, that late addition to the series whose aggressive cuteness failed to resuscitate the show's downward ratings spike. But, like everything else in this movie, that joke eventually becomes excessive. When your best quip is pointing out how the gang always invited trouble by splitting up into little groups, you might want to rethink that $90 million expenditure. Screenwriter James Gunn and director Raja Gosnell think they're being clever in reminding us, again and again, how stupid the original show was.

Many questioned in advance inserting a computer-animated Scooby amid live actors, and their instincts were dead-on. Scooby and his compatriots seem to be in different movies. Lillard's Shaggy is a far more inspired cartoonish accomplishment than the unimpressively rendered Scooby. The other human performers mostly give performances best described as ``obvious.''

SCOOBY-DOO - One and one half stars

(Rated PG: Some rude humor, language and some scary action)

Starring: Freddie Prinze Jr., Sarah Michelle Gellar, Linda Cardellini, Matthew Lillard, Rowan Atkinson.

Director: Raja Gosnell.

Running time: 1 hr. 25 min.

Playing: Wide release.

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Photo:

Ruh-roh! Sarah Michelle Gellar, left, Linda Cardellini, Matthew Lillard, Freddie Prinze Jr. and Scooby-Doo shake and shiver.