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TEEN TITANS GO! TO THE MOVIES
Directors: Aaron Horvath and Peter Rida Michail Cast: The voices of Scott Menville, Hynden Walch, Khary Payton, Tara Strong, Greg Cipes, Will Arnett, Kristen Bell, Nicolas Cage, Lil Yachty, Greg Davies, Halsey, Jimmy Kimmel, Stan Lee, Patton Oswalt, Wil Wheaton MPAA
Rating: Running Time: 1:33 Release Date: 7/27/18 |
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Review by Mark Dujsik | July 27, 2018 The Teen Titans, a superhero quintet made up of younger heroes, live in a world where both superheroes and superhero movies exist. It's not enough to fight crime and ward off supervillains in this world. The mark of a true hero is to star in your own movie and, hopefully, to be popular enough to start a cinematic franchise. Batman gets another movie here, and all of the trailers before the big premiere promise even more stories about the Caped Crusader. Actually, all of the upcoming movies are about his accessories: his butler, his car, and his utility belt. We haven't reached that level of cinematic superhero-dependence in the real world, but at the rate things are going, we just might. To be fair, the idea of seeing a movie devoted to Bruce Wayne's trusty butler Alfred cleaning up after his boss/ward's nightly crime-fighting gigs doesn't seem like a terrible idea. At least it would be different. Teen Titans Go! To the Movies is a different kind of superhero tale, in that it really doesn't care about being a superhero story. It's a broad, funny satire of comic-book movies and the culture's current obsession with them. The film makes its comedic points with references upon references, upon which other references are piled, with musical numbers, and with a healthy dose of humor involving bodily functions. It's clever in an unassuming way, much like the animation's thick lines and bright colors. The film's heroes exist as a joke within their own world of superheroes and dastardly villains and overly complicated schemes to take over the world, so they don't really care about participating in the bloated action and pompous melodrama of their older, more established peers. They're teenagers, after all, so they seem to just enjoy the fun of being superheroes—even if that means not doing anything particularly heroic. Take the film's opening battle with a villain who's basically a giant balloon robot. He's going around Jump City, the home of the Titans (with the motto "Safer than Gotham"), destroying buildings and robbing a bank. The superhero team arrives, puts on a good show of battling the balloon monster, and is almost immediately and then totally distracted when the robot asks who they are. That's their cue for an introductory song, in which each of the members gets a chance to explain their powers and to show off their dance moves. Meanwhile, the balloon villain takes advantage of their sudden indifference to his crimes and starts stealing even more stuff. The team, by the way, is made up of Batman's sidekick Robin (voice of Scott Menville), the cybernetic Cyborg (voice of Khary Payton), the alien warrior Starfire (voice of Hynden Walch), the shape-shifting Beast Boy (voice of Greg Cipes), and the dark-magic-wielding Raven (voice of Tara Strong). The plot sees Robin wanting to get his own superhero movie after being embarrassed at the premiere of the latest Batman adventure. His best bet, the rest of the team decides, is to find a worthy archnemesis. Arriving on the scene to steal a generic crystal (that's the "perfect plot device") is Slade (voice of Will Arnett), a gun-and-sword-brandishing villain who resents being mistaken for the gun-and-sword-brandishing anti-hero from that other comic-book universe ("Look into the camera, and say something inappropriate," the skeptical Cyborg asks, just to make sure). If the battle goes well, Robin might be able to convince filmmaker Jade Wilson (voice of Kristen Bell) to add him to her roster of superhero movies. The plot, obviously, doesn't matter. The screenplay by co-director Aaron Horvath (the other being Peter Rida Michail) and Michael Jelenic (who created the TV series of which the film is an extension) is a string of riffs on superhero lore, on superhero movies, on superhero egos, and, just to sum it up more concisely, on all things superhero-related. The jokes are as simple as throwaways, as obscure as conjuring up another team of superheroes that is probably only known by the most devoted of fans, and as crude as the team proudly announcing that each of them has used a prop toilet on a movie set. They're also as clever as an extended sequence in which the Titans decide to go back in time. The idea is to stop every superhero's origin story from occurring, giving Robin an easy path toward movie-stardom (This is either an intentional or accidental jab at the reliance on this formula in superhero movies, and even though there's some bias on my part, I'm betting that it's intentional). This means saving Krypton from destruction, stealing Wonder Woman's lasso, and suggesting that the Waynes take a shortcut through a different, cheerier alley. When that plan has unexpected consequences, they have to return back in time to bring things back to normal. If you've kept up with the gag thus far, you have an idea of how twisted the sequence's punch line is. The jokes are a constant here, except for some action and a handful of musical numbers (one of which, an intentionally generic upbeat and inspirational song, is catchy and especially weird in its kitschy presentation). The film is equal parts playful and subversive in its take-down of the contemporary obsession with superheroes (The villain's plan is a doomsday device that will more or less force everyone on the planet to watch the latest comic book movie—not that they need the push). The filmmakers of Teen Titans Go! To the Movies clearly have a deep affection for comics and superheroes—enough to point out that Hollywood's own love for them may have gone overboard. Copyright © 2018 by Mark Dujsik. All rights reserved. |
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(for action and rude humor)
