Movie Review – Teen Titans Go!

In the latest cartoon show to be translated to the big screen, we have been presented with Teen Titans Go! To the Movies.  The cartoon show had a very polarizing effect on fans of this particular team from the DC universe.  Some fans love the off-kilter zaniness, constant 80’s references and dashes of potty humour.  Other fans hated what they called a bastardization of a classic team, the childish antics and the low quality animation.  Personally I have been in the first group and found the show very funny to watch on Saturday mornings with my son – even if it has left him with a penchant to constantly ‘Do the Booty Scooty’.

This movie could be said to be DC’s response to Marvel’s Deadpool.  The Deadpool Movies have been immensely popular, made fun of the whole Super Hero Movie franchise, constantly broke the fourth wall and demonstrated that super heroes can be funny!  DC movies have been accused of being too dark, too overly dramatic and frankly not much fun.  This is what Teen Titans Go! attempts to rectify.

 

The plot of this movie is simple – every serious super hero is getting their own movie and the Teen Titans, particularly Robin, want one too so they and he can be considered real super heroes.  The problem is they are a bunch of goofballs that spend more time eating waffles and singing songs than actually fighting crime.

So off they go to get themselves an arch nemesis in order to be taken seriously and are provided with Slade, the main antagonist from the Teen Titans cartoon from the late 90’s.  They are summarily trounced by him, so decide they need to come up with another plan.

The pacing of the first half of the movie runs a bit too slow.  In fact nearing the half way point I was actually getting bored, which is saying a lot considering how much I love animated movies.  It lacked the banter that makes the cartoon show so much fun – instead of constantly arguing with each other and the team as a whole picking on Robin, they act as one unit and they always follow Robins lead without complaint.  Much like the My Little Pony Movie, they have removed one of the key elements that made the cartoon show as popular as it is.

 

Thankfully the second half picks up the pace.  The heroes time travel to get rid of all the other heroes so that they are the only ones to make a movie about, leading to some funny scenes where they alter other heroes origin stories.  When that fails they end up actually having a decent fight scene with Slade which leads to getting a movie.  Of course by now the audience starts to twig that the movie producer is actually Slade in disguise and uses this to break the Teen Titans up so that he can get back a crystal they stole and take over the world.

The final act of the movie is all the regular super heroes, now mind controlled, hunting the heroes and then the Teen Titans facing off against Slade in a giant robot.  Another good fight scene ensues and they naturally save the day, earning the respect of all the other heroes in the process.

 

This isn’t a bad movie on the whole, but it isn’t great.  As mentioned, it lacks a lot of the humour that the cartoon show does.  There are a few funny bits, such as the Titans all using a prop toilet that doesn’t work, the references to the Back to the Future movies and Robins final line of the film.  The movie even references Deadpool from which it draws inspiration – they mix up Slade with Deadpool, talk to the camera, lampoon the whole super hero genre and have cross-universe gags such as Stan Lee making a cameo even though it is a DC movie.  However much of the humour falls flat and lacks that certain spark, the Batman LEGO Movie delivered far more chuckles.  Besides Robin there is zero character development with the other Titans and Slade is an OK villain at best.

If your kid is a massive Teen Titans fan such as mine is, it’s worth taking them to see it on the big screen in the short time it will still be in the cinemas.  However if you and/or your kids simply like the show and not love it, you can wait for the movie to come to DVD before watching.

 

Got something to say about this movie?  Would love to read it in the comments section below!

 

Related Articles:

Movie Review – Deadpool 2

Movie Review – My Little Pony

Movie Review – The LEGO Batman Movie

 

 

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