Hair-raising fun for the hols with Trolls
Trolls (U) Verdict: Delightful DreamWorks animation ★★★★✩
THIS DreamWorks concoction, by the makers of Shrek Forever After, is enormous fun.
It’s a genuine half-term treat for poppets and parents alike, with Anna Kendrick, Justin Timberlake, James Corden, John Cleese and Gwen Stefani among the stellar voice cast.
The Trolls are irrepressibly happy creatures, who only hug once every hour because otherwise there wouldn’t be enough time left for singing and dancing. But there is a shadow looming over their joyous world of ‘cupcakes and rainbows’.
This is the neighbouring race of Bergens, ogres with nasty, crooked teeth who are as miserable and misanthropic as the Trolls are joyful, and yearn for the happiness they can only experience by eating one of the upbeat little varmints and digesting its eternal optimism.
When the Trolls escape the threat of the Bergens, they seem destined to live extremely happily ever after. But then the terribly angry Bergen cook (think Gordon Ramsay on a bad day, or maybe just an average day) captures a gaggle of them and prepares to serve them up to the Bergen king.
Kendrick voices the Troll princess, Poppy, who sets off to rescue her friends, aided by the one Troll who refuses to be happy, Branch (Timberlake). The songs are delightful, the animation brilliant, and I emerged from the cinema feeling far more Troll than Bergen, but maybe that’s because my children are old enough for me not to worry about the inevitable onslaught of merchandising.