Trolls World Tour

Voices of: Anna Kendrick, Justin Timberlake, Rachel Bloom, Zooey Deschanel, James Corden, Ron Funches, Kelly Clarkson, Sam Rockwell, George Clinton, Mary J. Blige, Kenan Thompson, Kunal Nayyer, Jamie Dornan, Karan Soi, Charlyne Yi, Flula Borg, Ozzy Osbourne
Directed by: Walt Dohrn, David P. Smith
Rating: PG
Genre: Animation, Adventure, Comedy
2020

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: Poppy (Anna Kendrick) and Branch (Justin Timberlake) must fight to save the Pop Trolls from the Hard Rock Trolls, who want to take over the world.

Review:

Tim: As I sat down with my family to watch Trolls World Tour, I thought about being too harsh on the original movie. Poppy and Branch are great characters, surely I had been too hard on the first film. My kids were so excited about watching this. I determined to watch this with an open mind. And, it took only a short amount of time before I realized my original sentiments were correct and that these are not, in fact, good movies.

This movie gives us more of the same substandard animated fare. The characters might be cool, but the story they inhabit is quite bad. In theory, I enjoyed the idea of different musical groups within the larger Troll world. This felt like a stretch from the story established in the first film, but these movies have never been characterized by effective stories. So, if you're telling me each group of Trolls connects to a different genre of music, okay, I guess that's kind of cool. Unfortunately, the story isn't told well. That's the issue. The pace is so frenetic, so many jokes are unfunny. It all comes across as lowest common denominator storytelling. The approach seems to be to throw a bunch of colors up on the screen, mix in some catchy tunes, a few generic jokes, and kids won't know the difference. This movie never fully seems to understand what it wants to be. There's not a clear vision, and director Walt Dohrn lacks in execution. The movie feels pointless, like you're sucking on a hard candy with no nutritional value, but it also leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

I like Anna Kendrick and Justin Timberlake and I feel bad they have been saddled with films of this poor quality. I like Poppy and Branch as characters- they are direct opposites, yet connected by some subtle similarities. Part of the reason the characters are so good is because of the work Kendrick and Timberlake do to bring them to life. They're enjoyable and are not part of the problem. Again, it's the story and the approach to storytelling that lets them down.

I always like Sam Rockwell and he did a good job here. His character is perhaps one of the more memorable of the film, but I honestly have no idea what his name was. Still, he did good work. Rachel Bloom was solid as the chief antagonist. I don't like James Corden, but his performance was adequate, I suppose. The rest of the cast was fine, but there weren't too many standouts.

I went into Trolls World Tour convinced I'd been too harsh on these movies and ready to enjoyable the experience. The film couldn't even succeed with that fertile ground. The movie is all style and nearly zero substance. It prioritizes movement, throwing colorful, shiny objects on the screen hoping no one will notice how creatively bankrupt it is below the surface. The idea of the trolls divided by musical genre was cool, but it felt forced after the first film (like they're just making things up as they go along) and wasn't executed well. This is on par with the first movie, which is to say, not nearly good enough.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 5.5



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: Trolls, Trolls Holiday, The Croods