Trolls
(2016)
(SPOILERS) I keep having to remind myself that DreamWorks Animation
occasionally delivers the goods. Shrek
(the first), How to Train Your Dragon
(both), Mr Peabody & Sherman (no,
really). When they first appeared on the scene, I rooted for them as the
underdog to Pixar’s uncontested champ, and when they got that Shrek Oscar even more so. But since then,
they’ve done their best – even though Pixar’s quality control has slipped,
sequels and all – to erode any good will. Trolls
is just the latest deficit, a musically facile day-glo assault on children everywhere’s
senses that somehow slipped through the net to garland critical approval,
despite the – most likely – no-more manipulative The Emoji Movie receiving unanimous critical poop-icons.
There are a lot of poop, and general excretion, jokes in Trolls, which is of course par for the
course in kids’ fare today. I pine for the halcyon days when it was kind of
naughty to make a funny about farting and pooping, rather than having it expressly
encouraged by all and sundry. As for the title characters, I never did
understand the appeal of Troll dolls, aside from melting them over a blazing
fire, so I’m undoubtedly not the target market here, even in a nostalgic sense.
The movie does nothing to clarify matters. It’s possibly because Trolls are Danish
in origin and, as we know, the Danish are all crazy.
They’re unflaggingly cheerful, these Trolls, except for the
Justin Timberlake one, but you’d be an unhappy Troll too, if you were voiced by
Timberlake (at least we’re spared his dead-eyed stare), so it’s understandable
that the giant Bergens should have yen for eating them during their annual
Trollstice festival. I wondered if in-house DreamWorks scribes Jonathan Aibel
and Glenn Berger hadn’t taken inspiration from Fraggle Rock in this regard, to considerably less endearing
results, what with oversized creatures attempting to feed on cute – not that
the Trolls are cute – wee ones. I was certainly minded that the animators took
their cues from The Boxtrolls for the
design of the Bergens (That, and Bad
Santa’s Herman Merman for the child Bergens).
To be fair, the picture’s contrasting darker elements have
their merits; one sequence, in the style of storybook art (faux 2D is becoming
increasingly common in computer-generated animations – who knows, perhaps we’ll
come full circle to the real thing eventually), sees heads of Trolls being
ripped off in glorious rainbow cavalcades, like a family-rated Kingsman. There’s the occasional decent
line too; in the midst of Timberlake’s heartfelt explanation for why he doesn’t
warble any more, he announces that singing killed his grandma, eliciting the
aside “My uncle broke his neck tap-dancing
once” (I’m not sure the flashback to grandma being grabbed by a Bergen is
intentionally funny, but it certainly made me laugh). There’s also a
never-fails Cyrano de Bergerac bit, in which Zooey Deschanel’s junior Bergen is
coaxed into asking out Christopher MIntz-Plasse’s King Gristle (“My name is Lady Glitter Sparkle Seriously”).
Bergen-wise, Christine Baranski steals the vocal honours as the enthusiastically
wicked Chef.
Numerous familiar tunes litter the sountrack, as is the
DreamWorks way. Some (Gorillaz, Bonnie Tyler) are vaguely inspired, but the
attention to ‘70s disco is vaguely worrying (notably Donna Summer), with its
echoes of coke-fuelled excess. Add to that – if you’re a Pizzagate enthusiast –
the young Bergens’ date night snack of choice being pepperoni, and you have a
potentially raging inferno of a movie corrupting your infants’ unsuspecting
morals. But maybe you shouldn’t worry. After all, “Happiness isn’t something you put inside. Its already there”.
And, if you’re a fan of farting glitter and shitting
cupcakes, you can’t really go wrong with this. Or if you rate DreamWorks’ ongoing
obsession with animated slo-mo. Trolls
evidently made enough to get a sequel greenlit (yet The Croods, which made $250m more worldwide, got its follow up cancelled?),
but possibly a precipitous drop-off awaits, a la Smurfs. Possibly, Trolls
missed its chance, since Sing swung
in and really went for it in the animated medley stakes. Another three years
and that niche may well have been exhausted. Generally, though, this movie
seems designed to encourage kids to take amphetamines in later life, so if
that’s what you want for your offspring, go ahead and let them see it.
Agree? Disagree? Mildly or vehemently? Let me know in the comments below.