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While following the animation scene is a lot of fun, with finding new directors and discovering new animation projects, any scene in the entertainment industry or any industry at all has its dark side. One of the loudest toxic reactions you will ever get is if you dare like a show like Teen Titans Go! Listen, I get the annoyance and anger of them canceling the original show for, from what I remember, no real reason, and then years later replacing it with something more comedic and less violent. However, people really need to let go of the anger for this show. Yes, it can be fairly vapid and stupid, but the show has a lot of great episodes, moments of clever writing, and really funny jokes. It just seems unfair to throw this show under the bus, when the original Teen Titans show from the 2000s had mostly that same kind of humor. You can easily connect the two shows without much effort. Not every episode was dark and mature. The new show isn’t perfect, and the original isn’t either. If people like both shows, then that’s fine. I’ll say this though, Teen Titans Go! To the Movies is a way better movie than Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo. Directed by the series creators Michael Jelenic and Aaron Horvath, in terms of animation this year from the big studios, Teen Titans Go! To the Movies might be one of the biggest surprise of th eyear. What do I mean by this? Well, let’s check it out.
The story follows our rambunctious group of “heroes”, Robin, voiced by Scott Menville, Beast Boy, voiced by Greg Cipes, Cyborg, voiced by Khary Payton, Raven, voiced by Tara Strong, and Starfire, voiced by Hynden Walch. After attempting to take down Balloon Man, voiced by Greg Davies, the villain is actually stopped by the combined forces of Wonder Woman, voiced by Halsey, Green Lantern, voiced by Lil Yachty, and Superman, voiced by Nicolas Cage. The three heroes call out the Titans for not really being heroes and all that comes with the responsibility. However, before the Titans can get chewed out too much by the adult heroes, they leave to go to Batman’s new movie premiere of Batman Again! Once there, and getting hugely ridiculed for not getting a movie, Robin decides that the only way to be taken seriously as heroes, is to get their own movie! Unfortunately, there are two things standing in his way, a movie director named Jade Wilson, voiced by Kristen Bell, and the fact that they don’t have a supervillain to call their own. Luckily for them, a supervillain named Slade, voiced by Will Arnett is trying to steal this stone to make his diabolical plan come to fruition! Can the Titans stop Slade? Will Robin get his own movie?
I think it’s only fair if I started out with the positives. I have way too much to praise to save it for the last part of the review. First off, for a film on a $10 mil budget, and a simplistic art style, it looks really good. With these types of films, you have to grade on a slight curve. What saves it from simply looking like another film based on a TV show that didn’t really need to be in theaters, is the fact it constantly uses varying art styles during certain sequences. It’s mostly in the song sequences and certain gags, but I love that they were given the freedom to go all out on visuals. I would argue that it looks more visually interesting than most CGI films from this year. The backgrounds look crisper, and while the designs are still simple, I felt like the movements were smoother. This isn’t something like that awful She-ra film from decades ago that was pretty much done on the same budget as one of the episodes of He-Man.
The biggest highlight of the film however is its comedy. From left to right, the film takes full advantage of being a superhero comedy that uses a lot of its best style of jokes and gags from the well-received episodes of the show. Teen Titans Go! To the Movies has some of the wittiest meta, self-deprecating, and best visual jokes of any comedy this year. It even has some of the darkest humor of 2018, where they take joy in what they do. I was surprised by this, because the writers and directors could have easily made this film a feature length version of an episode of the show that no one liked. Luckily for us, they lathered up all that elbow grease, and made sure this film had consistent laughs that were great for the kids, parents, and comic book fans. Even though it has a decent amount of low-brow humor, it does have a defense, in terms of reinforcing why the Titans got called out in the first place. I found myself consistently laughing alongside the audience when I went to go see this movie, and I was happy to see everyone young and old enjoying the film. You might even have to watch this film multiple times to spot all the jokes in the backgrounds. I could tell I missed a few. A lot of the reoccurring gags still have bite to them.
However, one of the greatest aspects of this film is not on the visual or writing side of things, though, those are incredible, it’s the fact that the voice actors of the show and film get top billing. Yes, there are a huge amount of celebrities in small roles or rather questionable cameos, but they don’t get top billing. The ones you see on the posters and in the credits are the voice actors. I’m so happy about this, because they could have taken the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic the Movie, and put all the big celebrities who had varying amounts of screen time first in the credits and posters. Yes, Kristen Bell and Will Arnett get billing, but Greg Cipes, Tara Strong, Khary Payton, Hynden Walch, and Scott Menville deserve it more than everyone else. I’ll say this though, my favorite celebrity cameo was Patton Oswalt as the Atom, who has some of the best laughs out of the movie.
I love Teen Titans Go! To the Movies, and I found it hysterical from beginning to end, but I do have some complaints about this silly movie. While I get that the film needed a plot to keep the jokes rolling, the overall plot is not the most interesting. It’s a case where everything that happens between the predictable story beats are more entertaining than Robin’s arc of getting over his crippling self-esteem issues of living under the shadow of the Batman. While I did care enough for our heroes to save the day and be fully okay with being silly characters, I think I would have rather them not try to make this film have emotional stakes. Like, I care, but it felt like the film wanted you to feel invested with the Titans, but also laugh at a lot of the comedic scenes that go into surprisingly dark comedic areas. It clashes with the comedy, when you are also told to care about the characters. Not to say you can’t be emotionally invested with characters in a comedy, but you have to be careful with how you execute it. My final complaint is that I wish the film didn’t lean on the lowbrow humor. It might have a reason to be there, but when the rest of the humor is so good, the fart, toilet, and twerk jokes feel out of place.
In general, this film reminded me that everyone shouldn’t be taking everything so seriously about the franchise and this type of media in general. Listen, there is nothing wrong with having legit issues with the franchise. However, there is also nothing wrong with enjoying the series and loving this movie. I’m not going to apologize for having a great time with Teen Titans Go! To the Movies. It’s easily one of my favorite comedy films of 2018. I can see myself rewatching this film when it comes out on DVD. I highly recommend everyone go see it. The only reason I would say not to see this film, is because this series isn’t your cup of tea, or simply aren’t interested in seeing it. I will say this though, they are not blackmailing fans of the original with this movie. You simply need to learn about how the current animation climate on TV works. Also, don’t go see this if you are going to hate on it. That doesn’t solve anything. While I have had fun talking about comedies for the past two reviews, it’s time to move on to another Netflix-exclusive animated feature with Flavors of Youth. Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed the review, and I will see you all next time!
Rating: Go See It!
The Other Side of Animation 