Teen Titans Go to the Movies (2018)
Directed by Peter Rida Mitchell, Aaron Horvath
Wirtten by Michael Jelenic, Aaron Horvath
Starring Scott Menville, Khary Payton, Greg Cipes, Hynden Walch, Kristen Bell, Nicolas Cage
Release Date July 27th, 2018
Published July 28th, 2018
I am only vaguely aware of the Teen Titans cartoon series. I know that I have flashed past it on cable television, alway pausing for a moment when I would see a recognizable superhero, like a Batman, Superman, or Wonder Woman, before moving on with my life. I’m aware that it has a reputation of being irreverent and quite funny for the age group it is aimed at, and even some older audiences who appreciate its satiric, deconstructionist take on comic book characters, or so I’m told.
Teen Titans Go to the Movies attempts to bring the magic of the small screen satire to the big screen and it works, for the most part. Teen Titans Go to the Movies is a funny and strange concoction that finds a group of super teenagers fighting for the respect that people their age don’t often get from adults. That’s a story that any teenager or former teenager should easily be able to relate to.
The Teen Titans are Robin (Scott Menville) aka Batman’s sidekick, Beast Boy (Greg Cipes) who can turn into any animal, Cyborg (Khary Payton) a half-human half transformer robot, Raven (Tara Strong) a misanthropic witch, and Starfire (Hynden Walch) a sweetheart alien Princess. Together they fight crime when they aren’t bickering or coming up with coordinated song and dance routines to tout how great they are.
The rest of the superhero world view the Titans as a joke and the opening sequence illustrates why. While they goof around rapping about their powers in front of a giant balloon monster wrecking havoc over a city, Superman, Wonder Woman and Green Lantern show up and do the actual fighting of the big bad before explaining to the Titans and to us that the Titans are a bunch of goofs who should stay out of the way of the real heroes.
The Titans brush off the lambasting and decide to follow the heroes to the premiere of Batman’s new movie, even though technically, they weren’t invited. After sneaking into the premiere they meet Jade Wilson (Kristen Bell) who explains to them why they will never have a movie of their own, they don’t have a good nemesis, a bad guy foil who could raise their profile, an arch-nemesis if you will.
When the call goes out for a crime in progress the Titans leap into action and, as luck would have it, they stumble into a crime being committed by the evil mastermind Slade (Will Arnett). Though Slade laughs off the Titans offer to be their arch-nemesis, he does beat the team up and leave with his criminal booty. Robin meanwhile, is determined to make Slade their arch-nemesis and ride that rivalry to his own movie.
Eventually, Slade does take the Teen Titans seriously which leads him to try to destroy the team using Robin’s desire to be a movie star to drive a wedge into the group. His very obvious accomplice is a rather clever and funny running gag in a movie that has plenty of clever and funny gags. And yet, the comedy doesn’t mean that co-directors Aaron Horvath and Peter Rida Michall and their team of 8 credited writers, don’t ground this in some minor melodrama.
Teen Titans Go to the Movies takes somewhat seriously the relationship between the team and that grounding makes the jokes funnier and the plot more familiar, easy to follow even if you’re not a Titans regular. The group dynamic is goofy but with a bloated self-seriousness on the part of Robin that is the funniest thing about the group. Robin can be a goof just like the rest of the group but it’s his pompous belief in himself as a hero that is repeatedly punctured to strong comic effect.
The rest of the characters are less well rounded with Cyborg and Raven barely making an impression while Beast Boy and Starfire get a few solid punchlines though not much depth. The character that arguably has the most well-rounded arc is Will Arnett’s Slade who may not change much from his arrogant, growling bad guy-ness but does slowly come to respect and fear the Titans as they slowly come to prove themselves as heroes, goofball heroes, but heroes nonetheless.
If you like obscure reference humor you will love the fact that Nicholas Cage is in Teen Titans Go to the Movies. The joke is that Cage once was set to play Superman in a Tim Burton directed Superman movie that went as far as having a script and a new super suit and a long-haired Superman. Footage of Cage testing out this new look Superman went online a few years ago and Cage has maintained he would still like to play Superman and it’s nice to hear him get the chance here.
Teen Titans Go to the Movie is not a memorable movie, it’s not a lasting animated classic. It’s a well-made and quite funny television adaptation that likely won’t spawn a film franchise. But, for what it is, with it’s mild ambition and big laughs it’s not bad. Given the state of the D.C movie universe at the moment, it’s arguably among the best of the D.C comics adaptations, but that’s not saying much when you consider Man of Steel and Suicide Squad are part of that universe.
