18. Trolls Band Together
This is the third Trolls film and to say these films have taken me for a ride I wasn’t expecting to be on is an understatement. One thing I think really needs to be said about these films as far as my appreciation for them goes is that it really did redeem the idea of “jukebox musicals” for me. I typically tend to prefer when musicals aren’t like Sing where the characters are just singing songs that already exist with little to no variation.
However, the beauty of the artistry here is on clear and open display. The characters in these films, especially this one, are NOT just singing the original song. There’s blending of styles and genres and even blending of the taken song INTO a completely new and original one! My favorite song on this track is Mount Rageous, which is just the villain song of the piece, "Watch Me Work" flowing in from Sweet Dreams. Like, the first part of that song is a huge chase that leads INTO Velvet and Veneer’s song about being famous and how “HARD” they worked to get to where they are now.
Who are they though? Velvet (Brianna Mazzola) and Veneer (Andrew Rannells) are two creepy looking, almost porcelain but kind of plastic looking people that are famous pop stars. They go on tour and they sing songs at concerts for their adoring fans and… it’s all a lie. Neither of them can sing for shit but instead of lip synching and trying to get away with that in as flimsy a way as they could, they’ve kidnapped a troll and are draining its life-essence to give themselves talent.
They’re succubuses. Yeah.
This matters a lot to Branch (Justin Timberlake), the now boyfriend to our girl Poppy (Andrew Rannells) from the first film, because the troll in question is one of his brothers. He’s got four of them; John Dory (Eric André), Spruce (Daveed Diggs), Clay (Kid Cudi) and the kidnapped one and the one closest to Branch, is Floyd (Troye Sivan). They used to be in a band together called BroZone with his moniker being “Baby Branch” because he was a literal baby in diapers at the time. The lead brother, John Dory, was a control freak though. He was obsessed with achieving the “perfect harmony” and pressured his brothers a lot with his set-up. He even tried to make one of them wear Funderpants briefs. Green briefs with a lightning bolt on them. We see them framed on a wall later.
When they fail really badly at one of their latest attempts to achieve that harmony they break up and go their separate ways… for like 20 years. You can imagine this took a toll on Branch because he was a baby at the time, left to stay with his grandma who ended up getting eaten because he still kept trying to sing. He lost the only remaining loved one he had, lost the color in his life and body, secluded himself in a hovel, became a “the end is neigh” hermit and… basically was miserable for those couple of decades before he met Poppy and his life started to turn around.
Watching this third film really did put into perspective where the catalyst for how Branch’s life spiraled out of control came from. As funny as the “because singing killed my grandma, okay” meme is, seeing it get expanded on like this really does shine a light on just how much this dude’s life sucked and how hard it is to blame him for being so down and cynical about life in the first film.
I appreciate that they don’t try to hide from it here either. When he has the expected blow up at his brothers when they inevitably get gathered one by one to help go on this journey to save Floyd, he has a bit of a meltdown and leaves. Poppy follows him and Branch says that she might leave him one day too so what’s even the point of her coming along?
It’s really sad but I love how Poppy handles it. She just goes up to him, grabs his hand, and reminds him of how much they’ve stuck together for so long and that they should both give each other more credit than that. He was at his lowest but instead of forcing an act two break-up, she cheers him up and they continue on together. Just because things aren’t working out with the brothers in that moment doesn’t mean he has to push EVERYONE away and it also doesn’t mean the other party has to LET him do that either.
The reason the brothers are needed is because that perfect harmony they were trying to achieve is the only thing that can free Floyd from the diamond prison he’s been locked in. Velvet and Veneer were even responsible for sending the message to John Dory to get them on this journey so they could capture them and use them as musical talent sponges too.
It’s like Space Jam except your talent is tied to your life-span. Meaning what they’re doing to Floyd WILL eventually lead to his death. Bro is literally being tortured so these two can be musical pop idols. It’s pretty fucked.
It’s REALLY awesome to have a nice set of villains in this film by the way. This film came out around the time where animation was kind of starved for them. If you look at the youtube comments for Mount Rageous, their villain action climax song, there’s a lot of comparisons being made to Disney’s Wish and how bad the villain song was in that compared to THIS. Dreamworks knocked it out of the park with this action climax. They always do whenever they specifically make it a musical action climax it seems because Shrek 2’s climax remains a cinematic highlight to this very day and it’s almost 90% because of Jennifer Sander’s rendition of I Need A Hero.
They keep putting in “I Need A Hero” in fucking everything now. Loki, Knuckles, The Super Mario Bros. Movie, and apparently Shazam! Fury of the Gods used it too. For fucks sake. It’s a great song but you are never going to be able to recapture the magic of Shrek 2. Not unless you try it with something else like this film did. I gotta admit, it got close. The musical climax to this film is breathtaking and heart pumping. It might even be solely responsible for knocking this film up several spots. It’s that good.
Of course, I can’t take it any higher than this. Surprisingly enough, there’s another Trolls film even higher than this one on this list but the reason for that is because that film just has stronger and more powerful and interesting things to say than this one does. What this film tries to achieve is still really good.
Brothership is one of my favorite topics in all of film. Stories about brotherhood will always grab me by the balls. I’m all about that sibling life. There’s even an emotional throughline when it comes to Velvet and Veneer as siblings here. Velvet wants to be the star of the show. She’s the big sister with big dreams and constructed this whole plan to make sure her dream came true. Veneer is the little brother who… just does what his big sister says. He didn’t want to be famous but because she did, she pressured him into helping him achieve her dream under the guise that it was THEIR dream.
He still reaped the benefits of it and stuck with it all the way to the end, long past the point of it being excusable but he does eventually come around despite needing to suffer the consequences of jail time along with his sister. It’s a good thing that he’s a bit of an airhead too because he’d probably would have been more devastated by that were he any smarter.
However, that’s as far as the film goes when it comes to a range of interesting topics to discuss. The film is about siblings. Branch’s siblings, Velvet and Veneer as siblings and… Poppy and her long lost sister Viva (Camila Cabello).
Yeah, Poppy has a sister. She’s nice. I like her.
Uhm, her story feels a little shoehorned in though.
So much of this film’s plot is taken up by the main thing going on with Branch and his brothers that the little detour the plot makes to go deal with Viva and Poppy’s relationship feels out of the blue. It helps that it doesn’t just come out of nowhere. There’s a little set-up at the beginning during the wedding between King Gristle (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) and Bridget (Zooey Deschanel), the Bergens from the first film, but that’s kind of it until the middle of the film where they meet her and the part before the climax and directly within the climax where Viva shows back up with the Bergens helping her out.
Viva’s whole thing is that she was separated from her father and Poppy at a young age when the Bergens attacked. She lives in a secluded community separate from the outside world that doesn’t know that the Bergens no longer attack or eat Trolls. So when Poppy rolls in and starts talking about being friends with one it leads to complicated feelings… but they very much do not have time to explore those feelings because of the time crunch Floyd is on. They have to leave immediately because that dude is going to die if they don’t so unfortunately Viva is just kind of left to have that arc to herself in very short bursts of scenes towards the end.
It doesn’t… not work… but it definitely could have worked better. Despite her being on one of the main posters for this film, this is a Branch film. It’s nice that they felt Poppy needed to have something but… I dunno. I feel like her connection to Branch as his emotional support was strong enough to justify her being in the film. Aside from her and his brothers the only other person along for the ride is Tiny Diamond, a baby glittery Hip Hop troll voiced by Kenan Thompson and he’s just there for comedic relief. It’s not as if they couldn’t make due with just what they had.
Subplots are important to films, of course. They help bolster the main theme that the film is centered on and breathe new life into its overall message by utilizing different perspectives. This one could have just been handled better.
Other than that, I’ve no real complaints. It’s a solid film with solid characters, great music, and a visual style that’s all it’s own. A really good visual style that it should be proud of too. I appreciate the moments where it suddenly looks like one of those old style Dr. Seuss books too. Thank you Hustle Man.
