I knew about this series for quite some time now, but I only got the chance to watch it in the past few days. It was the first series shown in the DC streaming service back in 2018. I was already interested in watching this one as it was about Batman's sidekick Robin and his friends, but as the rating was also quite good, it made me even more excited. So let us move on with the story.
Brief Story Line
Dick Grayson (Brenton Thwaites - Office Uprising, Gods of Egypt etc) had moved on to Detroit, leaving Batman and Gotham city for good. He worked as a police detective and wanted to quit being Robin due to the violence it brought out of him. But when a teenaged girl named Rachel Roth (Teagen Croft) ran away from home and somehow met with Dick, he could not help but try to assist her. Especially since she was being chased by many dangerous people, including Kory (Anna Diop - 24: Legacy etc) a mysterious woman with unique ability but having memory loss.
During her run, Rachel also met with a teenaged boy named Gar aka Garfield (Ryan Potter - Big Hero 6 etc) who also had a unique ability. Ultimately Dick had to help Rachel escape from the constant danger, especially from a "family" who had great strength and difficult to stop. As the story continued, it would be revealed the reason for Rachel being hunted.
So how would the story continue? Find them all in this quite amazing, dark & violent super hero series from DC universe.
End of Brief Story Line
Now this was one interesting series. The pilot episode had a dark tone but it was really an amazing start of what the future would hold of this series. It was quite mysterious and I was a bit unsure of what it was trying to tell at first. However, in the middle of the episode, it literally erupted into something so good, especially with that astonishing remarks from Dick Grayson aka Robin (you really should not miss out on this part).
In the next few episodes, the story was more like introduction of the characters which for me was pretty standard. Some characters were more interesting than others, and then there was a very intriguing episode titled Doom Patrol which apparently was to set up a spin off coming soon in the DC streaming service as well. Of all the total 11 episodes in this series, my most favorite one was definitely episode 5 which to my opinion was really awesome!
What actually bothered me a bit about the series was the seemingly pace inconsistency. At certain episode we had fast pace feel and were given an ending that would make us want more, only to be continued with an episode that toned down the pace incredibly. Personally I think it's ok if you got like many episodes in a season so you would still got sufficient time to enjoy them all. But for a season consisted only 11 of them, I was left with a rather irritated feel and tempted to just skip to the subsequent episode. And that season finale did not help either. I was a bit shocked that they made it as the finale (even if it gave us a really amazing surprise). Later I found out that the first season was supposed to be having 12 episodes, but it was decided that the 12th episode would serve as the second season opener.
Aside from those episodes, the series was actually great in term of the actions and special effects. The fights were almost always violent, something that you would usually see in a possibly R rating movies. And with the occasional foul language plus some horrific images at certain time (including few jump scares), this one probably would be better seen by the more mature or with parental guidance. There were also quite abundant characters from DC universe, either shown in their own episode, or mentioned or shown as cameos for example Hawk (Alan Ritchson) and Dove (Minka Kelly), Donna Troy (Conor Leslie) and few others. DC comic book fans would recognize these characters immediately. I actually loved how they teased us with the iconic Batman in this series.
For those who may not be familiar with Titans, the series was based on the group of sidekick superheroes which from what I read in the internet had some changes of its members along the years. I honestly only knew a bit from the animated version of Teen Titans Go! To the Movies. However, where that one was a light version with many hilarious moments, this series was the total opposite. We should be expecting a series which would satisfy hard core DC comics fans due to its dark tone. Oh before I forgot, this series had several co-executive producers with one name that was really familiar to me, i.e. Greg Berlanti, the man behind those DC series of Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl and few others (Arrowverse). So it was probably no wonder the series was quite a hit.
Overall, I felt this series was a nice addition to the DC comics adaptation on TV. It was certainly darker & a lot more violent than the lot of DC TV series nowadays. It had some great actions sequence, some mystery, some twists and good characters development plus a seemingly very difficult super villain which would satisfy comic book fans. It is certainly refreshing to see these superhero sidekicks in their own adventure series. As there would be another spin off from this series, it would be interesting to see if they would make lots of cross over in future as well. And be sure to wait till the very end of episode eleven as it had a post end credit scene.
Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars
No comments:
Post a Comment