TEEN TITANS - TROUBLE IN TOKYO

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This direct-to-DVD full-length movie sees Batman’s boy sidekick Robin leading a group of teenaged superheroes to Tokyo to investigate a mysterious super villain named Brushogun who attacked and trashed their headquarters.

To be honest Robin was the only superhero character in this group I could recognize, but it doesn’t really matter: his cohorts aren’t faceless entities, but each of them has their own personality and quirks and aren’t strictly defined by their superpowers alone like for instance in the way you never could tell the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles apart. (The super team line-up here consists of Starfire, Cyborg, Raven, and Beast Boy.)

Trouble in Tokyo has some fun with its premise in that it occasionally breaks away from its usual animation style to fool around with visual anime clichés. The story though is quite thin and a lot of the material seems like pointless filler. Still, the pace is snappy and the animation spirited enough.

While Teen Titans is hardly the sort of breakthrough show such as the early 1990s animated Batman TV series was, it makes for fluffy light entertainment that will entertain both its intended target demographic of small boys too lazy to read comic books and older animation fans with low expectations. Some scary bits may frighten smaller children so parental discretion is advised.

Worth a look-see. Note however that listening to the show’s TV theme requires a sense of humor.