Teen Titans Go! To The Movies

The superhero comedy is now as ubiquitous as the very genre it looks to mock. From spoofs like The Lego Batman Movie through meta alterna-franchises like Deadpool and even shared universe mega-hitters like Thor: Ragnarok.

Fortunately, these examples are all uniformly excellent and we now have a more youngster-friendly film to add to the mix with Teen Titans Go! To The Movies. Based on a little seen early-noughties animated series the titular Teen Titans are DC's Robin, Starfire, Beast Boy, Raven and Cyborg (the latter confusing things slightly when the Justice League show up.)

Seeing their more famous brethren get movies of their own (yes, in this universe the superheroes fight crime then re-enact it for their films) the Titans go about trying to get a movie of their own.

Glorious meta-humour ensues, running the gamut from highly niche jokes about obscure DC characters to playful ribbing of the DC big hitters to some non-too-subtle swipes at Marvel which feel a little bitter and resentful given the difference in quality between the current studio output of the two (although the Stan Lee 'cameos' are hilarious.)

This is firmly for the superhero fans with some laugh-out-loud set pieces. A scene featuring the Titans going back in time (cue the Back To The Future soundtrack) to reverse the Justice League origin stories will leave you in stitches.

Unfortunately though, DC don't allow the characters and intelligent humour to stand by itself, believing that little ones still need toilet humour to enjoy a film and so a customary amount of not-very-funny fart jokes stand out like a particularly annoying sore thumb.

It does though have a suitably superhero friendly plot featuring a nice twist and a strong villain although you may get a little spot of deja vu if the last film you saw at the cinema was Incredibles 2 as it, quite literally, has pinched the core of that particular film.

Let's not take away though from what, ironically, might be DC's best film for a long while; an excellent cast with a surprising amount of big name voices and it even gets away with being a musical (oh yes, that's not a typo.)

A gloriously silly, overblown, batshit crazy superhero spoof the whole superhero-loving family can enjoy.

4 stars ****