TROLLS MAY GET INTO YOUR HEAD
Let’s get this straight: Trolls, tiny elfin creatures with prehensile hair, are ingested by evil green Bergens, who feel great happiness when they consume one, and have even named an annual celebration, Trollstice, in honour of the feast.
So the Trolls are living drugs, taken on days off. It’s as though we humans had holidays like Hallowme thamphetamine, PCP’ Easter or Cinco de Marijuana.
Not that your young’uns will be concerned with the druggy subtext of the latest from DreamWorks Animation — though if they are, maybe you should be concerned about them.
They’ll be too busy tapping their tiny toes to such earworms as Get Back Up Again, sung by Anna Kendrick, or Justin Timberlake’s Can’t Stop the Feeling! (Note that exclamation mark!!)
Kendrick and Timberlake play Poppy and Branch, two members of a tribe of Trolls that long ago escaped the clutches of the Bergens and have now all but forgotten their captors’ existence.
But the Bergens have been hunting for them all these years, and when their chief chef (Christine Baranski) captures a handful of Trolls, it’s up to Poppy and Branch to save them. While singing, if possible.
Actually, Branch doesn’t like to sing. Ever since someone took a Bergen for him, his sole preoccupation has been building an underground survival shelter that would put Diefenbaker to shame. He’s also against such Troll traditions as hourly hugs, near-constant dancing and scrapbooking.
Grumpier parents may warm to this guy. But he’s the ideal partner to keep Poppy out of trouble on her mission to save her friends.
The film works best in the party atmosphere of the Troll village, less so once Branch and Poppy infiltrate Bergen Town and become embroiled in the power struggles and romantic troubles of its ruling class.
Chef hopes to parlay her Troll supply into usurping the young King Gristle (Christopher MintzPlasse), while scullery maid Bridget (Zooey Deschanel — wait, I feel a song coming on) just wants a date with him.
There are oodles of opportunity for Poppy and Branch to bicker, and lots of adorable secondary characters with the voices of Gwen Stefani, James Corden, Russell Brand, Kunal Nayyar, etc. But the story never quite leaps into the realm of the fantastic.
Some of the musical numbers work quite well on their own, mind you.