REVIEW: “Trolls World Tour”

REVIEW: “Trolls World Tour”

April 11th, 2020

Martin Goodman

I am continually amazed that recent animated films, even ones with five screenwriters (which Trolls World Tour has) continue to be so derivative, thematically redundant, and prone to replace originality with CGI eye candy. So far, in 2020, Pixar’s Onward has bucked this unfortunate trend. Now, Onward may not be a landmark film in that studio’s pantheon, but it stands head-and-Troll-ders above Universal’s on-demand release, Trolls World Tour.

The original 2016 movie earned points for being a well-made, entertaining effort with snappy tunes, meaning that it made too much money and sold too much merchandise not to have a sequel. So committed was Universal to releasing this film, the studio made Trolls World Tour the first major movie release available through home streaming services. The method of distribution is likely to be more of a game-changer than the film will ever be.

We rejoin peppy Queen Poppy, her dour suitor Branch, and the other trolls from the first film. They are unaware that they are a subspecies: there are five different types of Trolls, each happily tuned into a musical genre. After Queen Barb of the Rock Trolls devastates the kingdom of the Techno Trolls, Barb sends Poppy a menacing message: The Pop Trolls, whom Poppy rules, are next.

This revelation is unrelated to the first film, in which the trolls are musical (but didn’t know that they were of any particular genre). It also appears that the five other unseen tribes got a break in that no one was trying to eat them. Each tribe, as it turns out, possesses one string from an ancient lyre, with each string embodying a musical genre. Queen Barb intends to take them all by force and wed them to her guitar, after which she will windmill the “ultimate power chord” on her axe and subjugate every troll alive into her Queendom of Rock.

At first, Poppy thinks this unification is a great idea but soon learns differently as Queen Barb spurns her offer of friendship, dreaming only of conquest. The threat sends Poppy, Branch, Biggie, and his symbiote Mr. Dinkles on a journey to warn the other Troll Kingdoms. For the record (so to speak), the remaining kingdoms are Classical, Country, and Funk.

On the plus side, this film is replete with catchy (though abbreviated) snatches of music. CGI stars in imaginative ways; the textures in each kingdom vary but are not hyper-realistic. Backgrounds and props appear to be made of felt, various cloths, or plastics, at times giving the movie a psychedelic feel. This style is most evident with the Techno Trolls, whose bodies and environment shine in vivid Day-Glo colors.

The drawback of this approach? The film is overwhelming to look at, a sugar rush for the eyes. When the trippy visuals mix with frenetic dancing and music is banging away (rock and pop are significantly over-represented), “Trolls World Tour” feels like experiencing ninety minutes of ADHD.

Walt Dohrn, who earned his chops writing for the TV animated cult hits SpongeBob SquarePants and Dexter’s Laboratory, does not have much story to consider. Trolls World Tour is a problematic film to inject any degree of depth into, and at times it seems that Dohrn is simply along for the wild, colorful ride. Still, he does seem to guide the film along the best anyone could, given the highly episodic and spotty nature of the screenplay.

The voice cast of the 2016 movie is back, with Anna Kendrick and Justin Timberlake reprising Poppy and Branch. They don’t add much new to their vocal or singing repertoires, but then, why would they? There are some smart additions to the cast, such as Kelly Clarkson as Country queen Delta Dawn. George Clinton and Mary K. Blige are just perfect as the rulers of Funkytown. Ozzy Osbourne (who enjoys doing occasional animated voice-overs) does a self-parody as King Thrash of Rock Kingdom. By far, the best of them is Thrash’s daughter, Rachel Bloom (as Queen Barb, a possible nod to Joan Jett). The former star of “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” lights it up in her role; if there is another Trolls film, it should be about Queen Barb.

Here’s the problem: After Trolls World Tour ended, it hit me that I just paid twenty bucks to see a movie I saw last year on two separate occasions. The first time it was called Avengers: Infinity War, in which a nefarious villain violently procures six “Infinity Stones,” places them into a unique instrument, and plays the “ultimate power chord”—oops, sorry. The second time I saw this film was The Addams Family, in which an evil woman with an outrageous haircut attempts to force her version of conformity on to a neighborhood of trolls—oh, sorry, did it again. She is defeated when everyone decides that celebrating their differences is far more rewarding. Even the baddie can’t resist co-opting into the joy.

It is all too easy to see in Trolls World Tour the different musical genres as symbols for different races and ethnicities co-existing in the whole of humanity; yet another animated film about celebrating differences, rejecting conformity, and embracing diversity. Again, as I have stressed in other reviews, I am certainly not against such things. In this time of the coronavirus plague, a common foe makes cooperation despite our differences more critical than ever. But how many times can the same theme be used, reused, and re-presented? In terms of tolerance, probably not enough, but must this message be the basis for so very many animated films of late?

It would be great to believe that Trolls World Tour is helping to raise a generation of very woke, very committed warriors for social justice. But in artistic and creative terms, the film is nothing those same kids haven’t seen a thousand times by now.