Teen Titans: The Judas Contract is a direct-to-video animated superhero film directed by Sam Liu from a screenplay by Ernie Altbacker based on The Judas Contract by Marv Wolfman and George Pérez. It is the twenty-eighth film in the DC Universe Animated Original Movies series and is the sequel to Justice League vs. Teen Titans (2016). The film features the voices of Christina Ricci, Taissa Farmiga, Miguel Ferrer, Stuart Allan, Brandon Soo Hoo, Jake T. Austin, Kari Wahlgren, and Sean Maher.
This film marks Ferrer's final performance before his death from throat cancer at age 61. It had its world premiere at WonderCon on March 31, 2017. The film was released through digital download on April 4, 2017, and will be released through home media on April 18, 2017 by Warner Home Video.
Voice Cast:
Taissa Farmiga as Raven
Brandon Soo Hoo as Garfield Logan / Beast Boy
Jake T. Austin as Jaime Reyes / Blue Beetle
Kari Wahlgren as Koriand'r / Starfire
Sean Maher as Dick Grayson / Robin / Nightwing
Christina Ricci as Tara Markov / Terra
Miguel Ferrer as Slade Wilson / Deathstroke
Gregg Henry as Sebastian Blood / Brother Blood
David Zayas as Alberto Reyes
Maria Canals-Barrera as Bianca Reyes
Jason Spisak as Wally West / Kid Flash
Masasa Moyo as Karen Beecher / Bumblebee
Crispin Freeman as Roy Harper / Speedy
Meg Foster as Mother Mayhem
Kevin Smith as himself
Plot: (FULL Spoilers)
In the present Dick Grayson (now Nightwing) rejoins the Titans to track down a terrorist cult led by Brother Blood, who plans on capturing the team to absorb their powers with a machine that he has tested on Jericho (whom his assistant, Mother Mayhem, quickly shoots afterwards). Blood hires the mercenary Deathstroke to deliver the Titans to him, which he obliges to do for both the money and the chance to get revenge on Damian Wayne. Deathstroke monitors the Titans through his double agent that joined the team a year prior, Terra, whom he rescued after her parents turned their whole village against her and tortured her. When Damian grows suspicious of Terra's behavior and starts tracking her, he is captured by her and Deathstroke.
Terra acts cold and distant towards the other Titans despite their welcoming attitude, but eventually warms up to them over time. During the night celebrating her one year anniversary with the Titans, she shares a tender moment with Beast Boy and kisses him. The next day, Deathstroke kidnaps Blue Beetle at the soup kitchen he works at, Beast Boy at a convention where he thought he would do a podcast with filmmaker Kevin Smith, and Starfire at the apartment shared by her and Nightwing. Dick discovers what happened to the other Titans and is attacked by Deathstroke at his apartment. He manages to escape by faking his own death, while Terra captures Raven.
Deathstroke and Terra bring the Titans to Brother Blood, but since the machine cannot operate properly without a sixth Titan (as Slade failed to capture Nightwing), Slade offers him Terra instead. Blood starts draining the Titans of their powers, but they are rescued by Nightwing. Nightwing and Robin fight Deathstroke while the rest take on Brother Blood (whom has absorbed all of their powers). The two villains are stopped by the intervention of Terra, who is enraged at Slade for his betrayal. Blood is depowered by Raven and killed by Mother Mayhem while Deathstroke is buried underneath multiple rocks thrown by Terra. Too ashamed to face her former friends/allies after betraying their trust, Terra decides to bring down the entire area. Beast Boy attempts to assist Terra in escaping the crumbling fortress, but Terra pushes him back and is buried underneath multiple layers of rubble. Beast Boy digs her up and she dies in his arms.
In the epilogue, Beast Boy goes on Kevin Smith's podcast and talks about the Titans with the host. He mentions that the team has a "wonderful" new member and that he will miss Terra. In a post-credits scene, Jericho is shown to have survived the bullet Mother Mayhem shot at him earlier.
The Verdict:
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| Pretty awesome shot of this new team of Titans here, even though Cyborg is missing from the party. |
Things fast forward to present day with the same team of Titans (sans Cyborg) are led by Nightwing and Starfire on a raid on Brother Blood's HIVE facility. What's jarring here is that they already have Terra on their team and have accepted her into their ranks without any questions. It just seems odd right off the bat - even more so that Terra's voice sounds a lot older than what she looks like, thanks to Christina Ricci providing her talents to that role, but we'll get back to that subject later. Between Terra's sarcastic remarks and Starfire and Nightwing's obvious flirting and sexual humor between each other makes this a joy to watch in these opening moments.
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| No lie, there were tons of moments like this in the film where I had to pause just from laughing so hard. |
Don't worry Starfire and Nightwing's relationship becomes a recurring joke in this film - along with the recurring theme that somehow, someway that Nightwing gets his arm broken in ALL of these Bat-family-featured animated films in this continuity. Sadly, Damien (Robin) doesn't get as much dialogue as I was expecting here, but I guess a bit less of the kid being a dick was a good thing when we already had Terra filling that role with her sarcasm and attitude.
As much as the original Teen Titans cartoon is beloved for their adaptation of this story arc with Terra and Slade/Deathstroke, I felt that it was VERY rushed here. How did they expect audiences to care about Terra when it was clear cut from right off the bat that she didn't even like them or even tried to fit in? The partnership with Deathstroke was revealed a bit too early for my taste. Even though I knew it was coming but this film suffers greatly from its pacing. Damien is captured early into the film and the Titans don't really bat an eye about that (despite Slade's douchebag texts as filler) until they were reunited at the film's climax when they were all captured by Brother Blood.
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| Yeah... they went there in this film... |
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| Even though Terra and Beast Boy's relationship doesn't hit off as well as it did in the original Titans animated series, I still felt like he said some deep, meaningful stuff to her that really hit home. |
I can't really fault them for trying to recapture the magic that was between Terra and Beast Boy like it was presented in the original Titans animated series on Cartoon Network, but it was lost here when they already established that Terra had a thing for Deathstroke. Without making it seem creepier than it was on paper, I think that's why DC/WB cast Ricci for the role here with an older/mature voice for Terra to give off the illusion that she's older than she actually looks, but it's hard to buy into that when she flat out says that she wants to have sex with Deathstroke before he turns her down. I know that DC/WB are going with a more mature direction with these films, but didn't they get enough people frowning on them about how they portrayed women in the animated adaptation of The Killing Joke? Yes, yes... I'm well aware that story isn't kind to women at all but the "extras" added to it didn't really do it any favors, so I'm just saying here.
Changing gears a bit here, let's talk about how flawed her, Deathstroke, AND Blood's plans were... Okay, Blood wants the powers of powered people and he just settled for the Titans when the Justice League exists in this continuity. If you're going to hire someone as expensive as Deathstroke on the mercenary market, why not go after the Justice League and get your money's worth? Instead, you're going to settle for a team of kids, mostly with 2 out of 5 projected members not even having fucking powers (Robin and Nightwing)? What was even more stupid was that the whole point of having Terra deceive everyone was lost when she really didn't deal with the Titans herself. She helped Slade take out Damien, but everyone else was taken out by Deathstroke himself after her recon and research on all of their powers and weaknesses. I felt like Slade was just too lazy to do his homework himself (something Batman would have had no problem doing...) and it came off that he was just using this girl (Terra) to do what he didn't want to do to fulfill his contract with Blood. To say Beast Boy is supposed to have the entire animal kingdom at his disposal, it seemed pretty stupid that he couldn't hear Terra calling Slade flat out during the middle of the Titans' meeting before they were all being targeted.
Don't even get me started on how the finale of the film tried to act like Blood's combined powers were beating the Titans no problem until Terra went apeshit. They are really downplaying how powerful Raven is - especially after the events of Justice League vs. Teen Titans, but I'm guessing the excuse they want to throw out there between the lines that her focus is divided between controlling her powers and making sure her father stays imprisoned. That being said, she still was able to tap into his powers to land the finishing blow on Blood, so I don't get why she didn't do that in the first place. Once again, it just comes off as rushed storytelling - same issue that Justice League Dark's finale had. I think we can all agree that Blood was just an afterthought when it came to a main villain here in this film. It could have came down to the Titans facing off against Terra and Deathstroke.
What was really missing here is that killer edge the Titans had against Terra after her deception in the original animated series.
I was left wondering why should they still care after all of this? She didn't like Beast Boy here since Day 1 here, even though she caved for that kiss as part of her "cover" but she managed to keep pushing the rest of the Titans away when they got close. That was apparent at the party when she was barely even into it. She saved the pictures on her phone, but it was obvious she was all in for Slade until it was too late. Call me ruthless, but she got what she had coming and I didn't see a reason for the Titans to pity her. Goddammit, they missed the golden opportunity for Damien to say something savage as fuck at that moment when Beast Boy dug her body out of the rubble. Damien let me down in that department.
One thing I'm left wondering at the end is that why did the film gloss over the fact that Jericho (the guy who Mother Mayhem killed after the experiment) is Deathstroke's son? Well, I only know that since I'm familiar with this storyline from the comics, but it just seemed odd not to mention that at all here. I guess whatever is the next Titans-themed animated film after this will address that then.
Gotta admit, I'm looking forward to Donna Troy/Wonder Girl on the team for the next go 'round.
Last but not least, what the hell at Kevin Smith being in this as a legitimate character? Who thought that was a good idea? I get that he's a fan of this storyline but the brown nosing for Kevin Smith has to end at some point. He's a cool dude, but damn, I don't want to see him involved with everything DC related.
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