Susan Granger’s review of “Teen Titans Go! To the Movies” (Warner Bros./DC Entertainment)
Spinning off from the popular Cartoon Network series, this animated feature spoofs the DC Comics universe.
The story revolves around teen warriors who are very disappointed that they’ve never had a superhero movie of their own. There’s Batman’s perennial sidekick, the Boy Wonder Robin (Scott Menville), along with Beast Boy (Greg Cipes), Raven (Tara Strong), Cyborg (Khary Payton) and Starfire (Hyden Walch).
To rectify the situation, they try to enlist egotistical Hollywood director Jade Wilson (Kristen Bell), but their quest is complicated by villainous Slade Wilson (Will Arnett) – a.k.a. Deathstroke – often mistaken for Deadpool, yet determined to conquer the world.
Directed by Peter Rida Michail and co-writer Aaron Horvath, who collaborated with screenwriter Michael Jelenic, it is inventive, irreverent and amusing, peppered with peppy musical numbers, along with inevitable fart-and-poop jokes.
There are cameo appearances by Marvel’s animated 95 year-old Stan Lee, exclaiming “Excelsior!” and the Guardians of the Galaxy, even though, as someone points out, “That’s a different superhero universe!”
The voice-casting of Nicolas Cage as Superman is an ingenious touch, since he was once attached to Tim Burton’s “Superman Lives” about the Man of Steel. Always fascinated by comics, Cage dropped his real name (Nicolas Kim Coppola, nephew of director Francis Ford Coppola) and adopted Cage after comic book character Luke Cage; he also named his real-life son Kal, referencing Superman’s Kryptonian name ‘Kal-El.’
Plus, there’s Jimmy Kimmel as the caped crusader Batman. And that’s Michael Bolton’s vocalizing as the white tiger warbling “Upbeat Inspirational Song About Life.”
The action-packed computer graphics emanate from Snipple Animation, founded in 2011 in Manila in the Philippines.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Teen Titans Go! To the Movies” is a silly, slapstick 7. It’s family-friendly, aimed at youngsters – with a post-credit sequence touting the TV series.
