Teen Titans Go! To the Movies Review!

The promotion for Teen Titans GO! To the Movies has been flawless.  Clever ads, funny trailers, and the voice actors showing up at VidCon and Comic Con screenings.  This is my qualifications for watching an animated movie, if the trailer makes me laugh.  I loved the New Teen Titans with Marv Wolfman and George Perez’s run.  Then, went back to get some issues of the Silver Age Teen Titans run.  The Teen Titans cartoon was launched in 2003-2006 with a tv movie, Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo (2006) that seemed to wrap everything up.  Then, Teen Titans Go! was launched on the Cartoon Network in 2013 with the same voice cast. It didn’t worry about continuity, it was just fun.     

It starts out with a Super Hero Girls short, it stars Wonder Woman, Supergirl, Green Lantern (Jessica Cruz), Zatanna, and Bumblebee, featuring Batgirl.  She wakes up late and has to wait for Commissioner Gordon to fall asleep so she can join her friends and take on Mr. Freeze.  He finally sleeps and Batgirl takes off on her scooter and races across the rooftops to deal with Mr. Freeze.  A little fun before the feature.  So let’s get into the movie, Teen Titans Go! To the Movies is written by writer and producer of the animated series, Michael Jelenic, and co-written and co-directed by Aaron Horvarth who also was a writer and producer of the cartoon.  Horvath is joined by Peter Rida Michail, the supervising director of Teen Titans Go!, so this film has all of the imprint of the wacky tv series.  It also has the simple animated style of the show so it looks like an expanded episode with an a-list guest cast.  

So let’s drop what to expect, one I was laughing at the beginning of the film, I heard two adults in the back laugh at a joke, and the kids cracked up.  Also, this animated film is an antidote to the glut of superhero movies, they poke fun at them and love them.  Then, I have to note that I fell asleep, this movie needs to be trimmed for the drawn out jokes or the script needed to be tightened a little.  We have the flipping pages of a comic book that seems to be the standard opening of superhero films, but this is a gag as we get a seagull reading through New Teen Titans #1 (1980), then we move past Titans Tower, to Jump City.  This is the setting of the animated show and apparently this story pre-dates it.  We get the massive pink villain, Balloon Man (Greg Davies) who smashes into a bank and blows a bubble to take away the vault. He of course is confronted by the Teen Titans!  This is the original (and very talented) voice cast, the leader Robin (Scott Menville), Raven (Tara Strong), Cyborg (Khary Payton), Starfire (Hynden Walch), and Beast Boy (Greg Cipes).  A great voice cast, but the focus is mostly on Robin.  

Balloon Man doesn’t recognize them so they break out into their “Go!” song with a tape placed into Cyborg’s tape player chest.  They get so caught up with their song that the Justice League comes in to defeat Balloon Man; Superman (Nicolas Cage, love his casting!), Wonder Woman (pop singer Halsey), and Green Lantern (Lil Yachty who provides a rendition of “Go!” on the soundtrack).  They bring up that they have to head to Batman’s movie premiere and Superman tells the Titans that they are “goofsters.”  I love Wonder Woman saying her film took some time and Green Lantern’s comment about his own movie!  This is the running plot of the movie that everyone finds Robin and the Titans as sidekicks and Robin wants to be a true hero.   

We had from the trailer that Robin is brought down by the other superhero movies.  They return to their home at Titans Tower and Robin is sad.  He is cheered up by the Titans singing the “Upbeat Inspirational Song About Life” with a cameo by Michael Bolton as a rocker Tiger!  This is my favorite Michael Bolton song. So they head to Hollywood specifically to Warner Bros. Studio, but the director Jade Wilson, voiced by Kristen Bell, turns them down.  Robin decides that they must find a super villain that will make them high profile.  They head to the movie premiere, but the guard (John DiMaggio) stops them so Raven uses her portals to crash it.  The trailers are introduced by the director, Jade Wilson, we also have Batman voiced by Jimmy Kimmel.  I like the running joke of the Challengers of the Unknown.  

At S.T.A.R. Labs, the Titans take on the villain that of course they mistake for Deadpool, Slade who is voiced by Will Arnett.  He of course voiced Batman in The Lego Movie (2014).  The Teen Titans kept the villain’s first name to identify him, but he was known as Deathstroke the Terminator, not a kid friendly name.  The plot becomes a little obvious, but it is still fun.  We have Slade using the power of “Mind Manipulation”, but of course the Titans are in the way.  The problem with his planned take-over of the world points out that not all heroes are marquee heroes. We get some time travel with some music from a well known time travel movie.  There is also a surprise cameo from a person known for his superhero movie cameos.  This is wall to wall fun, just a little drawn out, all with an inspirational message.  I hope everyone has the chance to get this superhero animated fun before heading to other superhero films or superhero streaming shows!   

Four out of Five Birdarangs!   

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