Trolls Review

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by BlazeHeartPanther

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I watched Trolls a few weeks ago with a friend and I gotta say, I actually enjoyed myself. I didn’t think I would like it, but it turned out to be a pretty good film. Let’s get down to it.

Story: Basically, it follows the story of the Trolls who are sought after by the evil Bergen who feast on them to gain happiness. After the trolls escape, the head chef of the Bergen is banished and the trolls live a free happy carefree life until the chef finds them and abduct them to reclaim her place in the Bergen kingdom. It is up to Princess Poppy and Branch to go to the kingdom and rescue their friends, while at the same time, they help a Bergen who is being treated poorly by the Chef find true love with the prince of the Bergen, Prince Gristle. Now, I can say for the most part, this film does play it on the safe side with its simple storyline of adventure to rescue fellow comrades. In fact, it almost feels like what a Trolls movie would be like if it were done in the days of when trolls were made, like one of those 80’s toy related movies like My Little Pony, Care Bears, Rainbow Bright and whatnot, but this movie does present itself with a few diversions to make it stand out from those bland films to not make it feel all that much like a big product placement like some character and good animation, but that’s all I can say about it, it’s pretty simple, if not, all that familiar.

Characters: Princess Poppy (Anna Kendrick, Up in the Air, Into the Woods) is the future leader of the Trolls who loves to scrapbook and just be all around happy. Branch (Justin Timberlake, NSYNC) is a grumpy and very cautious troll who doesn’t like anything to do with happiness, Prince Gristle jr (Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Fishlegs in How to Train your Dragon, Super Bad) is the new leader of the Bergen who wished for happiness but was denied it in his youth and hopes to get it now that the Trolls have been captured. Bridget (Zooey Deschanel, Jessica Day on New Girl) is the lowly scullery maid who works for the mean Chef (Christina Baranski, Into the Woods, Maryanne Thorpe in Cybill) who has a crush on Prince Gristle. The one thing I can say about this cast is that for most of the supporting characters that they had voiced by some big names, those being James Cordin and Gwen Stefani, they really didn’t get a whole lot of screen time or recorded lines for the roles they played. I mean James was probably the only supporting character (alongside Russell Brands character, Creek) who had the most lines recorded out of them all and Gwen’s character (which I think is my favorite one) was just pretty quiet for most of the time, which is odd cause Gwen is anything but quiet XD. But other then that, the film carries itself on the two main characters of Poppy and Branch who do have a good chemistry together with how each of them contradicts the other cause of their personalities which do lead to some rather funny moments and heartfelt ones too, not to mention how it works into helping the Bergen Bridget fall in love with Prince Gristle later on. It has good main characters, but its supporting characters need a little more work.

Animation: Holy cow, I mean holy cow, this film is like watching the 2016 equivalent of Alice in Wonderland (the 1951 one, not the 2010 one) This film has some of the most colorful and well detailed animation ever put to film. It brims with so much color, I swear I was gonna puke rainbows by the time I was done. Not to mention some of its creature and character designs are creative and bizarre at the same time, and when you get into the Kingdom of the Bergen, you can really see that sense of lose color and dread that make the city look dull, but pleasing in how it looks, even the interior of the castle looks very medieval and has such nice looking aesthetics put into it. This is the kind of stuff that is to be expected from a company like Dreamworks, not that kind of cheap look like in their previous efforts like Home (which I liked)

Music: For the most part, the music is nicely done and does it job for the most part thanks to Christophe Beck (Frozen, Ant-Man) but the star of the show is the new songs written for this film. Can’t Stop the Feeling is this years “Everything is Awesome,” “Get Back Up Again” has a very catchy bounciness to it that’s about not quitting and overcoming the struggle, and my personal favorite “What you Workin With” has that overall hip-hop vibe that lays it down with a funky rhythm and wocal performance by Gwen Stefani and Timberlake who work great together. This film also has some redone versions of famous songs like Lionel Richie’s “Hello” Simon and Gerfunkls “The Sound of Silence” (You know, Hello darkness, my old friend?) and many others.

The overall score of this film I give is a 7 out of 10. It may not be as good as Dreamworks Kung Fu Panda, but it is still an enjoyable romp with some amazing animation and catchy songs.

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