Movie Review Trolls

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2016 – Spoiler alerts The last of the movies in the 2017 Mental Health Awareness 1 In 4 Film Festival to be reviewed by me, and in many ways the most disappointing. With films based on books, comics, fairground rides and bubble-gum cards, a movie based on plastic toys seems inevitable. Thomas Dam’s Troll toys, a wavy haired variation on the Smurf, rather than an internet bully, were sometimes called gonks, and often got stuck on the top of pencils, but kept smiling anyway In the movie, they are still insufferably cheerful and optimistic, constantly singing, but rarely finishing a song before breaking into another one, so the fragmented soundtrack becomes a sprawling medley. The karaoke singalong edition barely gets the audience joining in on one hit before cutting to the next. Not surprisingly, several singers act in the movie including Justin Timberlake and Gwen Stefani. The Trolls have mortal enemies though, the Bergen, a perpetually miserable, gloomy people who want to be happy and think they can only experience joy by eating Trolls, and if captured, the Trolls are only eaten on one day in the year, Trollstice Day (of course!). Why don’t the Bergen eat them on capture, and why don’t we see a Bergen’s temporary troll fuelled happiness? After escaping this fate right at the start by running down a tunnel presumably dug through previous ridiculously easy escapes, the Trolls try to evade future Bergen hunts, but despite warnings, the unbearably cute and mawkish Princess Poppy Troll (Anna Kendrick) throws a hugging party and makes so much noise partying the night away that half of her tribe are recaptured. She embarks on a rescue mission, moving with blind faith that everything will be alright, with only Branch (Timberlake) as the only unhappy, realistic thinking Troll, reluctantly helping her. The duo end up helping a Bergen scullery maid (Zooey Deschenal) discover love with the young King of the Bergen, Christopher Mintz-Plasse) with a rather literal Cinderella sub-plot). Ultimately, only the Bergen Chef and Troll traitor (Russel Brand) die as the Trolls teach the Bergen how to party without eating Trolls. The film has a lot of energy and enthusiasm, with some great flashes of humour, as with the cloud that tries raining on everyone’s parade but only gets itself wet in the end, but its whole blind faith and hope attains what we want message is misleading. The Bergen seem more realist and honest with themselves as the villains; there are people who are unhappy and jealous of those who have what they lack. Countries invaded for oil, missionaries imposing Puritan abstinence on peoples who got by for centuries without it, Conquistadors looking for the secret golden city of El Dorado, killing the Incas and Aztecs for not revealing its whereabouts (on the grounds of it not existing). Bullies who target the kids who just try minding their own business, sex offenders snatching what they want rather than pursuing adult consent first, etc. Though evil, they seemed credible deluded characters. The Trolls were rather horribly syrupy-sweet. Eating them would be a quick fix, not a true happiness injection. Though a children’s movie, the message of Trolls is that faith, hope, and always being nice and singing happy songs at the bad things makes them go away. If you are in a war zone, facing floods or hurricane, or seriously ill, just have a disco. Sadly, as Princess Poppy learns early on but then forgets, the endless hedonism seen as a universal language of peace itself blinds us to the bad things and attracts the attack like a homing beacon. I found myself feeling more Bergen than Troll by the end of the movie, but maybe it’s just me, being a killjoy realist like Branch, but he starts being happy again later in the film, after all, Justin Timberlake not getting on the never-ending soundtrack would be unthinkable. .(to anyone but me) Arthur Chappell