Saturday, July 28, 2018

Teen Titans Go! to the Movies

I've only watched a few episodes of the TV show while on vacation; the cartoon was sometimes funny, but it was often juvenile too, and I would have preferred to watch Scooby-Doo reruns. I was afraid that the movie would be too juvenile or too meta about Hollywood. (God, did I get sick of Hollywood navel-gazing satire in Arrested Development's season 4 Hollywood plots.) But actually the movie was pretty good and fun; the movie-making stuff actually figured into the villain's plans for world domination. It wasn't just for meaningless jokes.

Also, before the main movie there was a short, just like Pixar movies open with shorts, and this film was about Batgirl trying to join the other DC Superhero Girls in crimefighting. It was nice; I've seen a few webisodes of their series set in high school, and this was fun.

Will Arnett voices Slade, whose specialty seems to be "mind manipulation." At first he doesn't take the Teen Titans seriously, because his first few tricks (I mean, illusions) are misdirections like "look over there" and pretending to pull off his thumb. When the Teen Titans finally start not to fall for the silly maneuvers, Slade starts doing more impressive magic and fights competently. Meanwhile Robin pursues his dream to get a Hollywood movie, convincing his fellow Titans to help him go back in time and change origin stories so all the other superheros don't become heroes, leaving just them. However, that doesn't work out, so they go back and fix everything before returning to pursue their archnemesis Slade.

The movie is bright and hectic as expected, but has some genuine heart and some good songs. Overall, a very respectable, kid-friendly movie. Good job on Arnett for producing this; he needs more projects like this and less talking-dog movies. Though I do want to see him do more live-action stuff instead of always being a voice actor. I can understand making the most of his wonderful voice, but seeing his charming face is nice too.

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