Trolls
Director: Mike Mitchell, Walt Dohrn
Writer: Jonathan Aibel, Glenn Berger
Based on: Thomas Dam‘s dolls
Cast: Anna Kendrick, Justin Timberlake, Zooey Deschanel, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Christine Baranski, Russell Brand, Gwen Stefani, John Cleese, James Corden, Jeffrey Tambor, Ron Funches, Kunal Nayyar, Quvenzhané Wallis
Seen on: 8.4.2017

Plot:
The Trolls live a very happy life, carefree and filled with music and definitely not thinking about the Bergens who are only happy when they can eat Trolls. Nobody more so than Princess Poppy (Anna Kendrick). It’s only Branch (Justin Timberlake) who refuses to sing and who fears that the Bergens will be back. Therefore he is constantly trying to prepare for that eventuality. When Poppy throws a big party that actually does attract the Bergens and a few Trolls end up taken, Poppy knows that she has to rescue them. And who could help her better than Branch?

When Trolls came out last year, I decided pretty quickly that I really wasn’t interested in it. I did have Troll dolls when I was a kid, but I was never particularly taken with them and basing a film on them just seemed weird. But my niece loves the film and she wanted to watch it with me, so I did. And it turns out, it’s actually really sweet and funny.

Trolls is not a revolutionary film. The story treads well-beaten paths and deviates in very few things from the standard formula. But the characters are still engaging and I started rooting for them almost despite myself and definitely despite the fact that I knew exactly where things were headed and how they would play out.

The film does have really nice music. They build on old, well-known songs but give them a new spin, and I have to admit that Hair Up made it onto my yearly favorites list. You might say it’s a short cut to use existing songs, but it is a very effective one.

In any case, the film made me bop and sing along, but also laugh and smile. It is certainly more for (inner) children, but that’s not a bad thing at all.

In short, having watched the film now, I can totally understand why my niece loves it. I probably would have loved it, too, as a kid. And as an adult, I was certainly entertained by it.

Summarizing: Cute and fun.