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TROLLS WORLD TOUR – Review – We Are Movie Geeks

Review

TROLLS WORLD TOUR – Review

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TROLLS WORLD TOUR serves up a disposable abundance of flash and sparkle with a smorgasbord of dancing and music. This animated sequel (originally scheduled for theatrical release) offers enough kaleidoscopic visuals and good-hearted platitudes about tolerance and celebrating differences to earn the trust of parents who need something new to park their 5-year olds in front of during the pandemic. That said, don’t sit with them. This over-bright sugar-rush of a film is a brand-driven cash grab, the equivalent of having glitter blown in your face for an endless 95 minutes.  

When TROLLS WORLD TOUR starts off, all seems to be well in Troll Village with bouncy Queen Poppy (voiced by Anna Kendrick), and her downer wannabe boyfriend Branch (Justin Timberlake). Before long the pair discovers there are five other Troll clans, each of whom is trained in a different style of music. There’s Funk (represented by the voices of Mary J. Blige, George Clinton and Anderson Paak), Classical (violinist Gustavo Dudamel and Charlyne Yi),  Country (Kelly Clarkson, Sam Rockwell, and Flula Borg), Jazz (Jamie Dornan) and Techno (Anthony Ramos). That sort of musical diversity doesn’t sit well with Queen Barb (Rachel Bloom), a Hard Rock-loving Troll who decides no other musical forms are acceptable and attempts to do away with them. But Poppy and Branch attempt to unite the remaining groups and prove that all Trolls not being the same can be a good thing.

I missed the first TROLLS, though perhaps an animated Hip-hop musical based on weird cute/ugly dolls that were a fad many decades ago could be fun, and maybe it was. But TROLLS WORLD TOUR is almost non-stop musical numbers, mostly classic rock standards (and some new tunes), but no matter the pedigree of the artists they’ve hired, all the songs sound like earworm Kidz-Bop covers. Vast amounts of money and expertise have been poured into the film which boasts a star-studded voice cast and animation that strives to be expressive despite hideous character design. The cast does their best (though Timberlake is an awful voice actor) but they have almost nothing to do here save for fitting the requirement for singing all these pop covers. The writing is lazy in terms of developing these characters, so they emphasize their feelings through one trite song after another. There’s no heart or any kind of emotion behind the story, just so many shallow and simple ideas about happiness and acceptance. Toddlers will eat TROLLS WORLD TOUR up like candy so I’ll give this one more star than it deserves for being a decent distraction for them.

2 of 4 Stars