Teen Titans Go! To The Movies

The Barbarienne’s movie tastes are decidedly more conventional than either of her siblings, which may be due to her immersion in YouTube culture—she wants to talk about what other people are talking about—and, if it means sometimes going to see a movie like Infinity War, it’s a small price to pay to spend time with her. And seeing a bland movie is not the worst fate.

Also, I kind of wanted to see this one.

The Blue Bat one is trick. Is it Blue Beetle?

I can name about 2/3rds of these guys.

For those of you not attuned to the 2000-era cartoon scene, the Cartoon Network featured a very popular, highly-anime-influenced take on DC’s on-again, off-again comic line “Teen Titans”, which featured a variety of teenaged heroes (presumably with the notion that teen heroes might sell better), like Robin, Kid Flash, and briefly (if memory serves), a grown up (and black!) Joker’s daughter named “Harlequin”. The original TV Show, “Teen Titans”, featured Robin, Cyborg, Beast Boy, Starfire and Raven, and was quite good as far as such things go. Not overly serious, not overly goofy (except in the way that comic books generally are). It ran for about three years and change (2003-2006).

Then, in 2013, for no apparent reason, the original cast was reassembled for entirely parodic take on its previous incarnation called “Teen Titans Go!” which ran for another five years! This used and abused anime tropes and superhero tropes and the characters’ specific tropes. Any momentary seriousness was quickly dispelled. The Flower, who had been a fan of the original series, could not watch the comic reboot, though she did allow that it was fairly funny from what she saw. The Barbarienne had no such qualms, and The Boy (whose Girl was otherwise occupied) tagged along.

The Barbarienne loved it, of course. The Boy said, “If there was something I didn’t like, I just had to wait 10 seconds for the next thing to come along.” And that’s a decent summary: This is the sort of movie that the Brothers Warner currently excels at. Like the The Lego Movie and The Lego Batman Movie, the gags are fast and furious and the environment so chaotic that it’s hard to ever get bored, exactly. (I suppose you could be annoyed by the pace and tone and that would probably lead to boredom.)

On the WB lot!

The Titans on their quest to be taken seriously.

I was not bored, but I also could’ve stopped watching 20 minutes into it. Then I probably would’ve come back later at some point to watch the next 20 minutes. And so on until I had seen the entire movie. It’s not that it’s bad, it’s just that (for my tastes) 22 minutes of the show is enough.

The plot is a none-too-gentle poke at superhero movies—which given WB’s luck with said movies might seem a little sour-grapey—where everyone gets a movie…except Robin and the Teen Titans, because they’re jokes. Which, you know, in this incarnation they absolutely are. The over-arching plot has superheroes being given movies as a way to distract them from fighting crime which might be a cute joke or might be a terribly accurate metaphor, though I’m not sure for what.

The Titans had screwed up by this point, and were not aware of it.

The A-Listers are not impressed.

The contours of the story follow the exact same one you’ve seen thousands of times for musical groups: A group gets popular, and an avaricious producer seduces the lead away from the rest of the group. It’s sort of amusing to see it here, which I’m guessing is a stable in kid-oriented TV sitcoms. This provides just enough dramatic hook to have you care about the characters—much like The Lego Batman Movie—which is deftly aided by the directors Peter Rida Michail and Aaron Horvath, who are the directors on the “Go!” TV show.

All the original cast members are there, which is nice. For a low budget animation, the amount of care that went into the little details—the backgrounds are filled with gags both superhero-related and just goofy—is impressive. It’s made to be freeze-framed, and I’m sure it will be. Nicolas Cage—Tim Burton’s choice to play Superman back in the ’90s before that project fell apart—finally gets to be Superman here.

You probably know from the outset whether or not you’re going to like this. It’s good, as I say, for what it is—and if what it is is the sort of thing you don’t like in the 22 minutes form, you’re not going to have a change of heart when it’s stretched to 90 minutes.

Manatees are cool, man.

The Titans crash through a “Utility Belt: The Movie” with a Batgirl and “Aquamanatee” poster in the background.

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