This isn't a bad movie. Just want to make that clear. Also I did not hate it either. I just hated parts of it. But the overall package was passable. But that's kind of become the trend with the latest straight-to-DVD DC animated films based off the New 52 universe, going all the way back to Justice League: War. While none of them have been outright bad, they've either been unexceptional or flawed enough to be passable, and Justice League vs Teen Titans is no exception to that trend.
Now the basic plot should be familiar to any DC fan because it's an adaptation of one of the most seminal plots from the Teen Titans comics during Marv Wolfman and George Perez's tenure. Even if you didn't read the comics, you likely saw it in the Teen Titans animated series. I know I did. Raven's demon father, Trigon, is coming to the Earth to bring eternal darkness and Hell on Earth - as demons are wont to do - and to get here he needs Raven. Now what this move does is that it introduces a clever twist on this familiar story by having Trigon possess the Justice League and set them against the Titans. The Titan roster in this version features classic characters like Starfire, Beast Boy, and Raven but also throws in Blue Beetle and Damian Wayne. And there is where this movie's biggest Achilles Heel lies, Damian.
If you could stamp the word "Hate" on each individual cell in my body, it would come just a little bit shy of how much I despise Damian Wayne. This is his fourth appearance counting "Son of Batman", "Batman vs Robin", and "Batman: Bad Blood", and being a likable character still seems to be his proverbial white whale. Now to the credit of the writers, Damian has shown some genuine growth as he's graduated past "Kill the bad guy" being his first instinct to a given situation, but he's still kept that superiority complex and open hostility. Now in his defense, given that he was raised originally to be R'as Al Ghul's heir it's to be expected that initially he would act like that and that was fine at first. When Damian's inner conflict with what R'as taught him and what Bruce is trying to teach him was front and center like in "Son of Batman" and "Batman vs Robin". In fact with those two movies he had a genuine character arc, but by "Batman: Bad Blood" he still had the aforementioned superiority complex and open hostility. I'm not saying that I was expecting him to act friendly and crack jokes like Dick Grayson, but the problem with the type of character Damian is that he doesn't make for a likable protagonist unless he can show more than fleeting hints of humanity. It's great he doesn't resort to kill the bad guy first but I've long filled the tank on Damian proving how he's better than everyone, even Batman his own father.
You're probably wondering what I mean by that.
The movie opens with the Justice League fighting the Legion of Doom and beating them. But Weather Wizard flees, gets possessed by Trigon, wreaks havoc, and the Justice League try to stop him. Now Batman has Damian on crowd control, much to Damian's displeasure.So Damian hijacks the Batwing to use as a giant missile against the demon possessed Weather Wizard and he's probably lucky it doesn't kill Weather Wizard. Batman - much like me - gets fed up with Damian acting uppity and decides to put him in the Teen Titans in hopes that Damian can learn to follow orders and work on a team. Now I get why, the movie needed to show why Damian is being put on the Titans but this ends up giving the wrong impression that Damian is the protagonist when in reality this isn't his story.
Remember how I said this was an adaptation of the Trigon arc from Teen Titans? Now who do you suppose the protagonist of that story should be. If the answer was Raven, congrats you won. Luckily the writers picked up on this and devote enough the story that Raven is a protagonist, but she's sharing that with Damian. It might seem like a nitpick but this story would have been stronger if it had put Raven front and center. With Raven as the main character, the story could focus on her own inner turmoil and journey finding real friends and a home. How that could have been accomplished is keep the opening with the Legion of Doom more or less the same, with Damian being absent. After the battle's over Raven would introduce herself to the Justice League to tell them about Trigon and she needs their help. At first, they're skeptical, but then Weather Wizard gets possessed vindicating Raven. They put her on the Titans so she can be supervised while they work on dealing with Trigon.
The best part is that even with that change the majority of the movie's plot can remain intact. Even Damian being there with a line alluding to him disobeying Batman being the reason he was put on the team. The part of the plot that includes Damian and Raven bonding can stay as well. In the movie, the catalyst for this is during a training session Damian pushes Blue Beetle's scarab so far that it overrides Jaime's will and hits Damian with a chest cannon that severely burns him and Raven heals him. While healing him she picks up on his past and the two discover a kinship through their respective dark pasts. That scene can still be used in the version I suggested that places Raven as the main character, but I'm still glad that the writers had the good sense to at least split main character status between Raven and Damian, even if the story is weaker for it.
Another thing that I'm counting as a flaw is this one song they used in a montage of the Titans at an amusement park. The song sucked and I muted it the whole way through. Don't ask me the name of the song or the artist because the credits deigned to not speak of either, I checked.
But in all honesty, this wasn't a bad movie, DC has certainly done worse (Superman: Brainiac Attacks). One thing I really loved was Starfire being the leader of the Titans in this version along with being a big sister type figure which fits the character very naturally. Raven and Damian's budding friendship felt more or less organic and pitting the Titans against the demon possessed Justice League was a welcome twist. I also like how the story kept Batman benched for the majority of the story as too often DC treats Batman like their own Chuck Norris. It was also cool how they included Cyborg in the final battle, no doubt as a send up to the classic Titans roster. One weird thing is that they had Beast Boy randomly change into monsters once the Titans got to Hell. One of them resembled the were beast from the TT episode "Beast Within" so you're left to conclude that they're Easter eggs I guess, but I can't recall Beast Boy turning into an imp, a chimera, and griffin (I think that's what they were) in any other media.
Voice acting was inconsistent. There are really good performances from Stuart Allen as Damian, Brandon Soo Hoo as Beast Boy, and Jon Bernthal as Trigon (Although his was brought down somewhat by being filtered in order to sound more demonic) Kari Walhgren's voice for Starfire was too high pitched and didn't communicate the character's maturity properly. Taissa Farmiga, who voices Raven, was sadly the weakest as her performance was very wooden although I'm willing to put that down as lack of experience in voice acting. I get that DC likely wanted to use someone different from Tara Strong (Raven's voice in the TT animated series), but given that Raven is one fo the main protagonists she demands a better performance. Everyone else was just kind of there.
The animation, as is standard for DCs straight to DVD films, was top notch. Fluid movement and exciting action scenes are very much present and accounted for here. Sadly the same can't be said for the animation style, which while not horrible by any means lack any real identity unlike the Bruce Timm DCAU, the Teen Titans animated series, or even some of the straight to DVD films like Batman/Superman: Public Enemies, Batman/Superman: Apocalypse, or the Dark Knight Returns Parts 1& 2 which emulated the art styles of Ed McGuinness, Micheal Turner, and Frank Miller respectively. It's just a little too generic looking to stand out.
So all in all Justice League vs Teen Titans is an okay film that could have been better with a major change. It's good for some light viewing, but outside of being a hardcore DC or Teen Titans fan, I can't see much reason to own it. Causals rent it at most.
Also, why is Nightwing featured in a group shot during the credits when he was only in two scenes, neither of which were fights and not even that long?
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