In 1964, Bob Haney and Bruno Premiani created the latest addition to DC’s long line of superhero teams, the Teen Titans. While the roster of characters has changed numerous times over the years, many members of the Titans have been known for being sidekicks of other DC heroes and are usually led by Batman’s most famous sidekick, Dick Grayson AKA Robin. And while the Titans have been a part of the comic landscape for years, folks of my generation primarily recognize them via the anime-inspired animated series Teen Titans, which ran for five seasons on Cartoon Network from 2003 to 2006. The show, which followed a Titans group consisting of Robin, alien princess Starfire, half-human/half-robot hybrid Cyborg, gothic psychic Raven, and animal shape-shifter Beast Boy, was lauded for its mature storytelling, layered characters, and vibrant animation. In 2013, nearly a decade after the original show’s arguably premature cancellation, a new ‘spin-off’ of the series debuted on Cartoon Network titled Teen Titans Go. While the show did feature the same cast of characters (along with the original voice cast) as its predecessor, Go took the concept in a more comedic direction. And while the show has been a hit with its target audience, fans of the original Teen Titans series have been highly critical of it due to its radically different take on the characters, which they feel is vastly inferior to that of the original series. Nevertheless, the show continues to be one of Cartoon Network’s most popular shows to the point where it has even outlived the original series with an episode count of over 200. Thus, this iteration of the Teen Titans has now been given the opportunity to grace the franchise’s first feature film (not counting the original series’ 2006 TV film Trouble in Tokyo), Teen Titans Go to the Movies. And to those who are still fiercely vehement about Teen Titans Go… well, you may be surprised to learn that this film is quite an entertaining flick.
Despite all their various crime-fighting adventures, the five members of the Teen Titans (Robin (voiced by Scott Menville), Beast Boy (voiced by Greg Cipes), Raven (voiced by Tara Strong), Cyborg (voiced by Khary Payton), and Starfire (voiced by Hynden Walch)) are constantly told by other superheroes that they aren’t taken that seriously due to their childish behavior. To prove that they’re worthy of being superheroes, Robin realizes that their best chances of accomplishing this are to get the one thing that every great superhero has, a film adaptation. Thus, the team heads directly to Hollywood to try and make it big in the film industry, where basically every major superhero has gotten their own film. Once there, though, they learn from famous superhero film director Jade Wilson (voiced by Kristen Bell) that it’s unlikely that anyone would watch a film about them. In response, the Titans try and find the other big thing that every great superhero has, an iconic arch-nemesis. And as luck would have it, they soon find a potential candidate for that position in the form of Slade (voiced by Will Arnett), a gun-wielding, sword-wielding mercenary who seems to be a lot like Deadpool despite his insistence that he came first. Regardless, the Titans vow to stop his dastardly plan to take over the world via mind control, hoping that it’ll prove to the rest of the world that they’re truly worthy of a feature film.
The biggest selling point of the Teen Titans Go film is that it ultimately serves as a huge satire of the superhero genre. Obviously, this puts it in line with the Deadpool films in terms of its overall execution, with the primary difference being that this superhero satire is geared towards younger audiences. But even with this in mind, Teen Titans Go to the Movies isn’t that far off from Deadpool when it comes to the overall quality of its sharp satire. Plus, this isn’t just a spoof of DC films, including everything from their apparent necessity to be dark to the infamous ‘Martha’ moment from Batman v Superman. There are also quite a few jabs at Marvel (e.g. a familiar cameo) as well as some self-aware shots at Teen Titans Go itself, specifically the fact that most people view the Titans as, to quote Superman (voiced by Nicolas Cage, who finally gets to play the character after previously being set to play him in the canceled Superman Lives), ‘goofsters’. And with that said, while there are a few instances where the film delves into some of the same sophomoric toilet humor from the TV series that its critics intensely despise, these moments are generally downplayed in favor of all the great satirical bits of humor. To top it all off, the animation is quite solid. While I’m aware that the ‘cartoony’ redesigns of the main characters compared to the original Titans series has been a contentious topic amongst its critics, it ends up working quite well on the big screen, resulting in a lot of bright, fast-paced action sequences.
Arguably one of the nicest things to come from the newer series was that the five voice actors who portrayed the Teen Titans in the original series (Scott Menville, Greg Cipes, Tara Strong, Khary Payton, and Hynden Walch) returned to reprise their respective roles, which isn’t always the case when an animated series like this gets rebooted. However, that doesn’t mean that this was entirely a good thing for many fans, because from what I’ve read, quite arguably the biggest complaint about Teen Titans Go from fans of the original show was its drastically different portrayals of the main characters. Specifically, many people feel that the newer renditions of the Titans are a lot more immature to the point where they can even be a bit unlikeable at times. Thankfully, though, as someone who hasn’t had a lot of experience with the TV show, it didn’t seem like this was as big of an issue in the film. Despite a few instances here and there where the characters tend to mock each other, you do get a nice sense of unity between them, allowing for some decent heartfelt moments. Meanwhile, this film also sees the return of a classic villain from the original Teen Titans series, Slade. In the original series, he was voiced by Hellboy himself, Ron Perlman, but in this new film, he’s voiced by LEGO Batman AKA Will Arnett (Jimmy Kimmel, meanwhile, portrays this franchise’s rendition of the Caped Crusader). And while I think it’s safe to say that quite a few people will ultimately prefer Perlman’s serious take on the character, Arnett (who’s also one of the film’s producers) does get quite a few great laughs as the self-aware mercenary, making this the second great animated superhero film role of his career.
In conclusion, I want to make it clear that I do not have any major connection to the ongoing conflict surrounding the continued success of Teen Titans Go. For the record, I did watch the original Teen Titans show growing up; in fact, you could say that it was one of my first major introductions to the superhero genre in a time before the MCU was ever a thing. But at the same time, it’s been quite a few years since I’ve seen any of its episodes in full. As such, I also haven’t watched any full episodes of Teen Titans Go; at the time that I’m writing this, I’ve only watched a few clips of it online, and from what I’ve seen, the show honestly doesn’t look ‘that’ bad. And because of this, I found Teen Titans Go to the Movies to be a very entertaining animated flick. No, I’m not saying that it’s the best animated film or the best superhero film ever made, but it more than does its job of being a delightfully wacky satire of the superhero genre that isn’t afraid to pull a few punches at its own source material. Thus, for fans of the show, this will basically give them everything that they love about it. And dare I say it, this may even entertain some of its biggest haters because it does tone down some of the more ‘obnoxious’ aspects of the series. I mean, to be perfectly frank, it’s truly saying something when this film has fared far better with critics than 80% of the currently-released installments of the DC Extended Universe save for Wonder Woman. And if this film’s mid-credits scene means anything, the haters might want to see this film just to ensure that the one thing that it’s teasing ends up happening.
Rating: 4/5
No comments:
Post a Comment