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Hello Cinephiles,
Today we’re talking about the 2016 movie Trolls.
Story
The basic concept for this movie is that the Trolls are being hunted as food by Bergens. The unreliable narrator tells us that it’s the only way the Bergens can experience happiness. This is a dark concept that had me extremely interested. It’s probably the best part of the movie.
The theme of happiness runs throughout the movie with the inevitable, “Happy was inside you the whole time,” ending.
The humour is fun when they go a little psychedelic, but mostly relies on fat jokes, fart jokes, and a super awkward romance.
The film’s message ends up falling flat in it’s complete disregard for diversity and blatant misunderstanding of depression and trauma.
Score: 0 (I can’t believe anyone sober could approve this script.)
Characters
Ripped straight from an 80’s high school drama, these characters manage to have less depth than the dolls they’re based off.
Sad geek/loner/weirdo pines for beautiful/vapid/popular girl. His entire journey is to realize it’s okay to be happy. He’s finally accepted when he changes colours and starts to sing, effectively conforming to the group.
The king Bergen and scullery maid love story is so shallow they need four separate romance tropes to prop it up.
Score: 0
Dialogue
Overall the dialogue is pretty bland. A lot of, “Be Happy,” and the music is mostly used as reinforcement of the themes.
Forgettable overall.
Score: 0
Visuals
The visuals are pretty decent, even though they looked ripped from Little Big Planet and Kirby. They’re used to great effect to show the contrast and texture of this horror world, where there’s always a bigger fish to summon.
Score: 0.5
Fun
At the ten minute mark after the 3rd fart joke, I started to get worried.
The movie was fun when it concentrated on the contrast between joy and horror, but mostly I found myself wishing I was watching the new Cats movie instead.
Score: 0.5
Conclusion
This movie is offensive, awkward, and downright boring. Save yourself the pain and watch something else.
Final Score: 1 Star
Wow. Ouch.