TEEN TITANS: THE JUDAS CONTRACT REVIEW
TEEN TITANS: THE JUDAS CONTRACT REVIEW
Intro:
Ahhh, the nostalgia sets in appropriately as this film takes off. I remember many days watching the teen titans show happily and this film, just grabs the essence of this superhero group. Though this storyline is less inspired by the 2000s and more by the actual comic of the same name, it was nice seeing a mature and more adult themed version of the caped and sometimes not caped crusaders. Teen Titans The Judas contract has a wonderful balance of jokes, creepy themes, and just genuinely real relationships with action packed moments sure to keep your interest. This is my review of Teen Titans: The Judas Contract
Overview:
Teen Titans: The Judas Contract starts off with some of the original titans members from the most recent line of comics, riding through the city cooling when they stumble across Starfire, who’s not yet a member, fighting off some sort of alien attack. The crew decides to step in and end up conquering the alien horde and sending them back to whence they came. There’s a time skip after the titans agree to give Starfire sanctuary and we are taken to a point in the timeline where Starfire is leading the new teen titans squad which includes Damien as Robin, Raven, Beast Boy, Blue Beetle, Terra, and Nightwing (who recently returned).
At this point the titans are breaking into a hive operation and we are able to see some kind animosity beneath the surface of Terra. She talks under hear breath a lot during the battle expressing her displeasure of not being thanked for getting the team into the base. After the team takes out the hive, the titans return home and Nightwing and Starfire move into an apartment together in the city.
While they do their thing, the titans are back at the tower relaxing. Terra is up to her usual Tsundere tendencies with Beast boy when Beetle receives a call. At this point we find out that Beetle isn’t able to be around his family due to the scarab on his back. To deal with this emotional baggage he starts volunteering at the homeless shelter and has a pretty hilarious moment when he’s sexually attracted to one of the female workers there. Meanwhile Damian tells Dick he approves of his relationship with Starfire and the way she’s leading the team.
We are soon introduced to the man controlling the HIVE, Brother Blood. He leads a crazy cult bent ensuring his god-hood via a machine that gives the powers of others to one individual by force-feeding it to and from the body. This is where Slade comes in. Blood has employed Slade to deliver the Titans to him in order to zap them of their powers and Terra is his right hand girl. Let’s specify girl because their relationship gets borderline pedophilic.
The two work together to take out the Teen Titans, outside of Nightwing. The team is delivered to Brother Blood and since Nightwing isn’t there, Slade gives Brother Blood Terra to complete the contract. He utilizes this group and uses the machines to give some of their power to him until Nightwing shows up and disables it. Unfortunately he doesn’t do this in time and Brother Blood was able to absorb some of their powers. After a lengthy battle Raven taps into her demonic side and literally rips the power from Brother Blood while Terra literally attempts to kill Slade.
Brother Blood is killed by his Priestess and Terra saves Beast Boy before allowing herself to be taken out by her own rockalanche. Everything pretty much goes back to normal. Raven gets Damien a dog, Beast Boy mourns Terra, Beetle’s family reenters his life, Donna Troy joins the team, and NIghtwing and Starfire continue to cuddle up in their apartment.
Strengths:
This film is one of the best adaptions to a comic I’ve seen in a long time. They took an old story and revived it. They were truly able to capture the essence of Teen Titans in my personal opinion. They follow the story very well and even capture the creepy aspects of the story that make it sort of cringe worthy. Not once was I bored with the story and there were plenty of moments I had a genuine laugh. Like When Damien poked at Slade’s weirdo tendencies by saying “Seems like teenagers are just your speed.”
BURN
There even seemed to be a little nod to how Hulk handled Loki in the Avengers when Beetle and Beast Boy tag team the hell out of Brother Blood. I also feel like it had a very real feeling with the blossoming relationships, specifically Terra and Beast Boy. I think the conversation about pain creating a hero and everyone going through things was a very REAL conversation between two people. It gave each character depth and although Terra was a bad guy you could really see where this new cruel person came from.
The action is perfectly balanced between laughs, storytelling, and character development. The pacing was great and not once did I feel like anything was really out of place.
Weaknesses:
The pedophilia tones. Look, I know its part of the story but I can not excuse this shit from Slade. Slade aka Deathstroke was always a character I liked to see on screen and although he may have never planned to really do anything with Terra, just seeing this teenage girl try and put the moves on this CLEARLY 50+ year old man just made me cringe to hell.
I’m glad DC Comics didn’t cut it out and it’s not necessarily a weakness but it definitely can shift how you’re feeling at the moment, which in a way is a good thing. I do however think the pacing for this scene was off. Like after this scene you kind of get thrown into a happy go lucky moment with the team lol
Outside of that, I do think it would’ve been more interesting to have a deeper look into Brother Blood and his followers like we did in the comics. Outside of being a god, his motives would seem a little unclear to anyone who hadn’t read the original comic. I understand they only have a certain amount of time to get out all the interesting visuals and information so it’s not a super ding on the film at all.
Overall:
This is a solid comic book adaption and is definitely another great film in the belt of dc comics. I would give this a solid 7 out of 10. The tone levels were great, storyline was great, the characters all worked well off of each other and outside of the pedophilia, let me stop there. Yes I know it’s part of the story let me reiterate I’m glad they left it in there, it is a mature conversation about some real world shit, the placement just felt weird but that maybe because they were trying to get that bitter taste out of the viewers mouth but to me, it still threw the pacing off slightly. I also think a more in depth look at Brother Blood and his followers would’ve been a great addition as well but other than those two things I have noo real gripes. This is a film I say definitely go buy a copy, support DC so they will continue to produce these amazingly well done animations. Teen Titans: The Judas Contract gets a 7 out of 10
