Teen Titans Go! To The Movies (2018) - Movie Review

The plot: While every superhero under the sun has their own movie, Robin (Scott Menville) feels like he's missing out. His teammates try to console him over it, but he remains determined: He will have his own movie. All he needs is an arch-nemesis, and with the arrival of Slade (Will Arnett), it looks like he's about to get his wish... but at what cost?

The main five have been voicing the Teen Titans for so long that it feels semi-pointless to even bring up how good they are here. Greg Cipes’ slanguage-soaked portrayal of Beast Boy, Hynden Walch as all things sweet and innocent as Starfire, Tara Strong’s husky timbre as Raven and Khary Payton’s rousing cheers of “Boo-ya!” as Cyborg are all fantastic, but it’s Menville as Robin who ends up stealing the show from even them. This is the kind of performance that should serve, however ironically, as a perfect look into why it’s rather silly that we haven’t gotten a proper Robin movie yet. And no, Chris O’Donnell as Dick Grayson, Aged Man-child doesn’t count.

Where it gets really interesting is when we look at the rest of the voice cast, which is equal parts surprising and highly effective. Arnett (who also helped produce this film) as Slade brings that gruff goofiness that made his take on Batman so much fun and gives it a nice spin to fit one of the more underrated supervillains in the DC canon. Bit disappointing that they didn’t go with the full Deathstroke name, but spoilers, that is where the disappointments start and end. Kristen Bell as Jade Wilson adds some nice textures to the film as the director behind the superhero movies in-universe, which ends up adding to the main plot and turns this into what I’m sure is the head-canon for a lot of people who have grown tired of the mainstream DC Extended Universe. We even get veteran VA James Arnold Taylor as Shia LaBeouf (yes, seriously), the centrepiece for one of the film’s more mean-spirited but rather appropriate piss-takes. Man, have I never been so excited to hear Shia LaBullshitartist’s name in a movie.

From there, we have fabled geeks like Patton Oswalt and Wil “Thanks for blocking me on Twitter, douche” Wheaton as The Atom and Flash respectively, Jimmy Kimmel as Batman, Halsey as Wonder Woman and Lil Yachty as Green Lantern… and they are all ideal in how they play the characters. It is genuinely surprising that these names work as well as they do here, but the biggest surprise? We officially have a theatrically-released film with Nicolas goddamn Cage as Superman. And it is glorious! Same goes for having his son Kal-El Cage as baby Superman, because the man is that much of a geek and I could not be happier with the results.

As the name suggests, the animation goes with the GO! variant of the titular heroes, so mileage may… no, will vary on how effective it is. However, that itself isn’t much of a problem, since the film gets quite creative with a number of different animation styles to fit the given scene. We have what I will refer to as ‘felt animation’ in an early scene where the Titans make their own movie about Robin, we have dark line work and detailed musculature for the in-universe superhero movies, and… okay, I honestly don’t want to spoil this part, but let’s just say that, like most superhero flicks nowadays, there are post-credit scenes and the older Cartoon Network fans out there definitely need to stick around for. Even with the standard GO! style, it fits the big screen scope of the production very nicely, making for a lot of fun fight scenes and even more fun goofing around from our heroes. And to cap it all off, we have the holy grail of all animated productions: Background gags! Not only that, these are gags that basically make fun of everything in the Venn diagram that connects superheroes and cinema, from the MCU to the DCEU to Watchmen.

Which brings us to the film’s style of humour, complete with all the poop jokes. That and the occasionally grating vocal tics of the main characters can eat away at some of the enjoyment to be found here, but not by nearly enough. It takes a similar approach to the LEGO Batman Movie in how it takes everything to do with superhero lore and culture as a line of targets to make fun of, except this might go further than even that film’s efforts. Not only do we get a tonne of jabs at DC films, from how long it took for a Wonder Woman movie to get made to how much people would rather not talk about the Green Lantern movie, we also get equal helpings of teasing for the Marvel camp, complete with an actual Stan Lee cameo that is pretty much the best thing ever.

 

But that’s the more expected jokes to be found here; we also have a few musical numbers to contend with that, once again, give even the LEGO films a run for their money. From the cheeky aspirations of My Superhero Movie to the surprisingly solid rap theme Go!, to the grin-inducing piss-take Upbeat Inspirational Song About Life (sung by Michael Bolton, because his best-ever work will always be in service to sheer comedy), and even a few familiar movie themes that add some good tongue-in-cheek value to the proceedings. Oh, and a kick-ass orchestral version of the original Teen Titans theme that soars over the action scenes.

As far as the satire goes, though, the best points to be found here are in the story’s approach to fourth-wall nudging antics regarding superhero films. Right from the jump, there’s a laser-guided understanding of how superhero cinema is dominating the industry and how all kinds of characters are getting their own movies now. Even the more obscure names like Guardians Of The Galaxy. From there, Robin’s character arc basically revolves around the importance that is placed on heroes who make it onto the big screen… and how some names take up way too much of it, like the amazingly astute look at just how desperate studios are to keep Batman on the big screen. While the potty humour and the jabs at other superheroes and the cheesy-as-all-hell music are all well and good, all of this poking at the sacred cows ends up unearthing a question that none of the other DC animated flicks have touched upon yet: Why do we place so much stock on superhero movies to the detriment of everything else?

This is something of an unspoken problem regarding superheroes nowadays, where their presence at the box office has completely overshadowed their relevance even in the medium that gave birth to them: Comic books. All of the characters featured in the film, from the Titans to the Justice League to the neat inclusion of the Challengers Of The Unknown, have decades upon decades worth of adventures to their names… not that anyone nowadays seems to be too concerned about that. Sure, there are a lot of underlying factors to this within the comic book industry, not the least of which being how it has gone the way of most printed media and taken a serious decline in profitability over the last several years, but those stories are still there. The ones that show the frequently-disregarded heroes of the canon at their peak. The ones that gave these characters a reason to be remembered. The ones that gave a lot of these movies some of their ripest material.

Add to that their inclusion in other media, not to mention TV shows, and the importance placed on superhero movies seems a bit off-side. Especially since public perception of these heroes tends to be so insistent on big-screen representation that we end up with people bending over backwards to defend their appearances even in objectively underwhelming work. I know what that fanboy tendency feels like, and what this film shows is that it doesn’t have to be that way. Just appreciate these characters for what they are, regardless of where you find them. Even considering the subversive nature of films like LEGO Batman and even Return Of The Caped Crusaders, that is an incredibly poignant message to be seeing in this age of cinema. Of course, the film itself is conscious that important themes aren’t exactly the reason these films are watched, in what is one of the more gut-busting denouements I can recall seeing in any superhero flick, but for those of us who just have to read incessantly into things? Have to admit, I have a lot of respect for that idea.

All in all, this is the new strongest reason why DC needs to start taking itself less seriously, as these more comedic takes on their canon of heroes continue to outshine most of their biggest blockbuster attempts to date. The cast is incredibly strong, from the main cast to the eye-widening efficacy of the cameos, the animation is even stronger, highlighting real creativity and flexibility of style to make everything pop, the jokes are consistently funny, even if some of the subject matter is a bit juvenile (then again, even they end up getting laughs for that very reason), and the writing not only reaches new heights for modern superhero satire, it deconstructs the very notion of superhero movies and shows startling accuracy in its showing of the attitudes of the pop culture masses in regards to those movies. I had little to no idea what to expect from this movie, but quite frankly, this is one of those “everything I wanted, and everything I didn’t realise I wanted” affairs. On all fronts, this is worth checking out.