Trolls World Tour (2020) Review!!

Synopsis – Poppy and Branch discover that they are but one of six different Troll tribes scattered over six different lands devoted to six different kinds of music: Funk, Country, Techno, Classical, Pop and Rock. Their world is about to get a lot bigger and a whole lot louder.

My Take – Released back in 2016, Trolls, a semi-musical animated film from Dreamworks Animation, based on the troll dolls toy series of the 1970s and 1980s, was just a simple rescue romp with a very light touch, clearly made to cash in on the success of The Lego Film (2014).

While the film despite its ignominious toy-shelf origins did not exactly do record-breaking box office business ($346.9 million on a $125 million budget), the film did earn enough appreciation, especially for its message about finding happiness within oneself, to guarantee a sequel. Also the film’s story based on the world of these invitingly soft titular creatures was told with such verve and weird humor that it just kind of did deserve another visit.

Though this sequel has unfortunately released mainly on VOD, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, leading to a huge financial loss for Universal Pictures, it absolutely deserves watch as like any good sequel, the film elevates the stakes with its ambitious amusement to become an even bigger compilation tape than it already was.

It also ups the sheer amount of stuff happening on screen at any given time, even though the story it’s dealing with is more complex, making it precisely the blast family audience are looking for.

Following the events of the first film, the story continues to follow Poppy (voiced by Anna Kendrick), the newly crowned queen of her pop-music-loving Troll tribe, who is struggling to maintain her kingdom’s astronomical levels of glittery joy to such an extent that she has been ignoring everyone’s advice of any kind. With former grouchy survivalist Troll and now best friend Branch (voiced by Justin Timberlake) takes Poppy’s preoccupation particularly hard, especially as he has been trying to muster up the courage to tell her that he’s in love with her.

A change occurs in their routine when Poppy receives a sneaky invitation of a big party from Queen Barb (voiced by Rachel Bloom), the queen of the hard-rock Troll tribe, all in an attempt to lure her into a trap. The thing is Barb has been on a worldly mission to seize all musical strings, which are tied to different genres like country, techno, classical, funk, and pop. And once she has all six strings, she’ll be able to play a chord so powerful that rock will become the only type of music that exists anymore.

Convinced that Queen Barb is just a friend she hasn’t met, against all advice, Poppy sets off with Branch and Biggie (voiced by James Corden), a chubby and friendly pop Troll, to stop Barb from enslaving the world to just rock.

The plot bounces along with an almost manic energy, with silly jokes and whimsical characters popping up all the time. As soon as ‘the films opens with a popping cover of Daft Punk‘s One More Time, soon followed by a rendition of Hurricane, you just know you’re in for as much music and covers as the first film. Not that that’s a bad thing when you’ve the melodic voices of Anna Kendrick and Justin Timberlake leading the way. The film’s writing also isn’t bad: many of the jokes, while surreal, are actually quite funny. Here, director Walt Dohrn along with five screenwriters and a long list of musicians and Hollywood thespians donate to a noble message: let’s embrace diversity.

Although the film sometimes highlights the trolls’ physical differences, the contrasting cultures, primarily influenced by music, drive the celebrated distinctions. Its story explores musical appropriation and has a very timely message about diversity despite differences. Not all the jokes work, and some scenes are very cheesy, but that’s to be expected for a film of this nature.

Though it’s not nearly as heavy handed as it sounds, with a feeling of mostly cotton candy, sugary and sweet, but there’s something at its center and that’s appreciated. Yes, the film takes a straight aim at hardcore rockers, in fact, the musical kingdoms are filled with clichés, like the classical Trolls are all styled like cherubs in a Renaissance painting, the country Trolls have huge hair and long mustaches, and the rock Trolls all take after the Osbourne family.

This journey into different musical motifs gave the animation teams full creative opportunity to enlarge worlds with these new tactile tones, with the animation team deserving the highest amount of praise, as the results are stupendous with every inch of the frame draped in material detail that would take hours to appreciate every CGI thread.

There are also some pretty crazy bits, such as a male troll giving birth to a mini version of himself, a tear that cries more tears, and a psychedelic sequence that centers on the smoothness of jazz, that give the sequel a distinct sense of humor and personality.

However, with all of these colors, oddly-shaped mouths, and exuberantly cheesy pop mashups, it’s easy not to notice how thin the supporting characters are. For example, Cooper (voiced by Ron Funches) has a subplot about his search for other trolls who are more like him, which becomes a logistical challenge based on his utter lack of distinguishable personality traits.

Another fault I would like to point out here is that due to its extreme pacing it doesn’t allow any emotional moments to really settle in and leave an impact on the audience experiencing the feels right along with the characters. Nevertheless, the colors and the music will get kids and those young at heart giddy.

The voice acting is pretty good too. Anna Kendrick and Justin Timberlake do make a good, tuneful team and play off each other well, and any time they sing is a highlight. Sam Rockwell, Rachel Bloom and James Corden, as always, also manage to stand out. In other roles, Kelly Clarkson, Anderson Paak, George Clinton, Mary J. Blige, Ron Funches, Kunal Nayyar, Jamie Dornan, J Balvin, Anthony Ramos, Kenan Thompson, Zooey Deschanel and Ozzy Osbourne, among others, do well. On the whole ‘Trolls World Tour’ is a colorful and enjoyable sequel which will leave you grinning and humming.