Mark Reviews Movies: TROLLS WORLD TOUR

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Review by Mark Dujsik | April 10, 2020

We learn that the world of the Trolls, those cutesy-ugly creatures with tall and fuzzy hair that look like dolls (because they basically are), is a lot bigger than we knew before—"a lot, lot, lot bigger," as the opening narration puts it. It's far more complicated than we would have imagined, too. The first Trolls convinced us that a peppy, pop-music-heavy animated musical based on fad toys that were popular a couple decades ago could be fun, funny, and full of a fair amount of heart. Trolls World Tour does that again, and it's also smarter and more vibrant in its aesthetics, its narrative, and its message.

The music returns, of course. While the first film seemed to use its eclectic mix and remixes of familiar tunes as catchy hooks for a fairy tale-like story, music is the core of these characters, this world, and the history of both.

See, in long-ago times, the Trolls were united in their love of music, having suffered through a boring period of silence. They eventually developed different styles of melodies, and instead of concentrating on the fact of their musicality, each group focused on its differences with the others.

The Trolls' world was divided into six realms, each of them populated by the ancestors of those divided forebears: country, funk, rock, classical, techno, and pop. At some point, there was disco realm, too, but the Trolls are quick to evade that topic of conversation.

All of this lore is a particularly clever move on the part of the sequel's team of screenwriters (Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger return from the first film, and they're joined by Maya Forbes, Wallace Wolodarsky, and Elizabeth Tippet). The film's music no longer seems like a gimmick or a requirement. It's embedded into the story, just as the landscapes of the various realms are stitched together out of appropriate fabric or built on a foundation of the attitude of its respective music genre.

Like its predecessor, this follow-up is colorful and detailed, but like the story and the wider view of this weird world, the colors and the details have expanded and become more focused. Director Walt Dohrn (promoted from his role as co-director on the previous entry) and his team of designers and animators take full advantage of the broader scope of this tale, creating individualized looks for each realm that all fit together into a cohesive whole.

As for the story, the plot is familiar enough for comfort, but it's really more important as a springboard for the filmmakers' imaginations and a surprisingly potent message about our unique differences and our collective desire to express what makes each of us unique. The more basic part of it has Poppy (voice of Anna Kendrick, wholly charming as usual), now the queen of what we learn is a tribe of Pop Trolls, receiving a message the monarch of a different realm.

That queen is Barb (voice of Rachel Bloom, offering spot-on vocal and singing work), leader of the Hard Rock Trolls, who's taking her band on a world tour. She has a plan to re-unite the Trolls, although her aims are more aligned with conquest and forced uniformity. She wants every Troll to become a Hard Rock Troll, and if she can collect the six strings that gave each Troll tribe its distinct gift of music, Barb can do just that.

The naïve Poppy ignores the advice of her suspicious friend Branch (voice of Justin Timberlake), who wants to tell the queen that he wants to be more than just friends, and accepts Barb's invitation to join her. Branch grudgingly joins Poppy, and the two, along with stowaway Biggie (voice of James Corden), visit these previously unknown realms and witness the destruction that Barb has wrought.

At its core, the plot is an adventure with some chases and other types of action, and the song-and-dance numbers are energetic little interludes to the routine. The two strongest points here, though, are the film's continuation of the original's quirky attitude and the comprehensive design of this world.

In addition to Barb, we get multiple new characters here, such as Hickory (voice of Sam Rockwell), one of the Country Trolls (who have the bodies of centaurs and a laid-back twang), as well as assorted bounty hunters from more niche musical tribes. A reggae group and a K-pop group have a dance-off over capturing Branch, and Jamie Dornan voices a mercenary who uses smooth jazz to hypnotize his bounties, leading to downright surreal scene of Branch feeding a sushi version of himself to Poppy. Some other notable voices include those of Kelly Clarkson as the head of the Country Trolls, George Clinton and Mary J. Blige as the king and queen of funk, and Ozzy Osbourne as Barb's father.

The world itself, though, is equally astonishing and amusing in its detail. Even the ground of each realm lines up in some way with its musical spirit (The land of country is made up of patchwork quilts, and the terrain of the place of hard rock is stitched-together leather patches). There's a heavenly vibe to the land of classical music (The Trolls there have angel wings), and Barb's castle, amidst rivers of lava (into which one eager fan dives), is the face of a rocker with fingers extended to devil horns. There's a tactile sense to these designs, as if we're watching some imaginative child's makeshift playsets come to life.

There's a fine message here, too, and it's noteworthy that the screenwriters evade some kind of violent confrontation to resolve everything. Trolls World Tour is, after all, about the music. It can be happy or sad or angry, but those differences don't have to be a source of conflict, because the mere existence of music brings everyone together.

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