*Major spoilers for Incredibles 2

Exactly 364 days before Teen Titans Go! To the Movies was released, The Emoji Movie was released. A film that was so disgusting, I offered to babysit any child for an hour and a half in exchange for them not to see the film.

While I cannot offer that currently, I wish I could, because Teen Titans Go! To the Movies isn’t deserving of your child’s affection.

Granted, it’s not the worst movie made for people who believe kid entertainment should lack any element of sophistication. And I’ll give it this- the songs are catchy. Most kid movie songs aren’t very catchy.

Now I want to stress that I actually like the TV show this movie is from. I have watched quite a few episodes on Cartoon Network of Teen Titans Go! while babysitting. I understand why it’s popular. The twenty-minute episodes are full of superhero deconstructionism, goofiness, creative visual gags, and appealing characters done by great voice actors. As someone who didn’t know who the Teen Titans were in DC comic lore before the show, I have a better appreciation for the characters and understand why this team has such staying power. If there was an eighteen-year-old sitting in that movie theater by herself that was ready to give this movie a fair shot, it was me.

But some things that are twenty minutes are not meant to be stretched to an hour and a half. Just like emojis are not meant to shoulder a full-length commercial, Teen Titans Go! was not meant to be both Deadpool for kids and a “we read your internet complaints” message from Warner Brothers.

The basic premise of Teen Titans Go! To the Movies is that every superhero has a movie except Robin and the Teen Titans (consisting of Starfire, Beast Boy, Cyborg, and Raven). Robin, in particular, wants a movie and will do anything, even find a supervillain and abandon his friends, to do so.

And that’s the whole plot. And it’s stretched ttthhhhiiiiiiiinnnnnnnn. To be fair, it avoids feeling as episodic in structure as many TV shows-turned-into-movies are, but still. The only things moving this story forward to the inevitable moral conclusion are dance numbers and jokes about Batman V Superman. There are a few good gags, and excellent voicework all around, but it’s not enough.

While watching the third fart joke of the film, my mind started to wander, and I decided to reflect on the philosophical implications of Teen Titans Go! To the Movies. The villain, Slade, has an evil plan that, not to spoil anything, basically involves using screens to mind control people, including other heroes like the Justice League. He gains control of people’s screens through superhero movies, and because superheroes are too busy staring in these movies, they aren’t around to save people.

That is actually an interesting idea, that we spend too much time consuming media about superheroes but not actually enacting the morals they are supposed to teach us. And at the end of the film, Robin decides that it is better to be a superhero with his friends than a movie star.

However that message is defeated by the fact that this is a movie, and half of the runtime is dedicated to selling how cool superhero movies are. So kids are probably not going to walk away thinking- I should consume less superhero media and instead live out the values I have learned from them so I may serve my neighbors and community. I’m pretty sure they’ll be thinking, Robin and the Teen Titans are so cool! I want to watch more of their show! I wish I could be a movie star!

But you know what other movie has a villain with this exact same plan? Incredibles 2. In that film, Screensaver/Evelyn Deavor uses screens to control superheroes. She believes the existence of superheroes makes the public weak and passive, believing someone else will save them. So she uses mind control to make the superhero’s fail publicly, and ruin their reputation forever. She believes this will force people to become active again.

The “who did it first” argument doesn’t really matter here, although I’m going to give it to Incredibles 2, considering that Teen Titan Go! To the Movies looks like a rush job. The point is, we have two children’s films where the main question is: do superheroes (and superhero movies) make us more passive, easier to mind-control? Teen Titans does very little with the premise, ultimately burying it under the goofiness and flippant style of the film. Incredibles 2 thinks through it more clearly and ultimately comes to the conclusion that it’s on us to be superheroes, although we should let superheroes share their gifts. Both films suffer by having only the superheroes save the day, when thematically it would probably be better to get some human people in there, but Incredibles 2 gets to the heart of both the problem and appeal of superheroes, even more than the meta-Teen Titans Go!

And plainly, Incredibles 2 is a much better film. It is for both kids and adults. So why not see that? Unless you are a strong Teen Titans Go! TV show fan, this movie will feel like a chore. It’s a bummer there aren’t more animated movies out this year, but there are plenty of classic family movies to rent or stream. In a world with so many movies, why pay to see this one? Or watch a few episodes of the TV show instead. The Teen Titans may be going to the movies, but you don’t have to.

-Madeleine D