Nerds That Geek Movie Review: 'Trolls'

Written by Mike Cervantes

There was a time, just a little more than a year ago, that we were about to say “goodbye” to Dreamworks Animation Studio. The past few films in their repertoire, mostly sequels to franchises like Kung-fu Panda, Madagascar, and classic property revivals like Mr. Peabody and Sherman, were simply not making enough to fund the creation of multi-million dollar budget animation in the long run. The studio was ultimately saved when it was purchased by FOX, and Trolls is the first film to arrive in theaters from that purchase.

It comes as no surprise, then, that this movie tends to do a lot to keep itself safe in the animated film landscape. It is, like most current kids’ movies, based on a toy property, the trendy troll dolls created by Thomas Dan and made popular throughout the ’90s due to…copyright abuse and trademark plagiarism. It has an animation style that evokes the very cartoonish CG made popular by Sony’s Hotel Transylvania and Blue Sky’s The Peanuts Movie. It is partially produced by a figure of Dreamworks’ past: Justin Timberlake, who was in Shrek the Third, and due to his musical involvement, features a soundtrack that turns everything from “Clint Eastwood” by Gorillaz to Edvard Grieg’s “In the Hall of the Mountain King” into saccharine pop songs sung gleefully by him and his co-stars Anna Kendrick and Zooey Deschanel.

The plot itself also doesn’t stray too far from its Dreamworks ancestry, taking quite liberally from the very first Shrek: The oppressed troll kingdom, composed of the familiar multi-colored half naked little dolls, are frequently harvested from a tree and eaten by a more literal troll race called the Bergens on a holiday known as “Trollstice,” in order to maintain their own happiness. The troll king, Peppy (Jeffrey Tambor) mounts a revolution to flee the troll tree and set up a new community deep in the forest where the Bergens won’t eat them, and they can sing and dance all day.

Princess Poppy (Kendrick) enters the scene here. She’d like to be as important to the troll race as her father, but knows little more than how to throw elaborate parties, and bang on her trademark cowbell. She also faces opposition from a greyish-blue troll named Branch (Timberlake) who is the “type A,” perpetually in a bad mood and paranoid about keeping himself safe from the Bergens. His fears are made real when, amidst a loud party thrown by Poppy, the politically influential Bergen Chef (Christine Baranski) kidnaps several trolls to return to the Bergen prince Gristle Jr. (Christoper Mintz-Plasse) and restore her claim as the secret leader of the Bergens.

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Predictably, it becomes up to Poppy and Branch to move past their differences and rescue the kidnapped trolls. Along the way, they also work to create a literal Cinderella story for a Bergen dishwasher named Bridget (Deschanel ) who uses a hairdo made of several trolls to gain the attention of Prince Gristle Jr. This ultimately leads to a climax where the trolls can teach the Bergens to find happiness within themselves, instead of relying on the devouring of an intelligent race.
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The plot works, the music is toe-tapping, and the animation is amazing, with every character resembling some form of hand-made felt or glitter object, with lots of troll hair, glitter, and scrapbook-style special effects patterned all through the film. However, there’s an inconsistency with what the film wants to be artistically. There’s a music video sequence in the middle where Poppy goes through the cartoony enchanted woods, which I could swear was animated by a Cartoon Network alum. (Yes, Gennedy Tartakovsky did a tiny amount of consulting on this.) Sadly, that style doesn’t stay through the film, as 60% of it takes place in the depressing Bergen village, leaving the trolls to carry whatever colorfulness remains. Musical sequences are interspersed with slapstick gags and corny humor, once again evoking Shrek, and cameo after cameo of celebrity voices, including Russel Brand, James Corden, Gwen Stefani, and John Cleese, that are all completely forgettable.

Like the trolls themselves, this film is a mixed bag of party favors. Look into it and you’ll find at least two things you like, whether it is the happy soundtrack, the cartoony visuals, or the silly sight gags. It seems, though that someone cut the scrapbook pages too close, and as a whole the film is muddled by an overabundance of glitter, and a zip-dash pacing towards the finish line.  

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