Trolls

It’s guar­an­teed you will have owned or at least cupped hold of a Troll in your time on this plan­et. After the Beanie Baby bonan­za, they were the next best thing. You might expect the mag­ic com­bo of these rain­bow haired char­ac­ters, sprin­kled with Dream­Works Ani­ma­tion mag­ic, to pro­duce a sparkling explo­sion of care­free enter­tain­ment? It’s sad­ly not the case with Trolls, where the cup­cake ​’n’ colour­bomb explo­sion sug­ar­coats it’s unap­petis­ing core conceit.

The plot is sim­ple and deli­cious­ly digestible for lit­tle ones. Princess Pop­py (voiced by Anna Kendrick, whose squeaky voice reminds you that Troll toys are plas­tic) ven­tures off with grumpy and über para­noid Branch (Justin Tim­ber­lake) to save the colour­ful Troll Town’s cit­i­zens who have been cap­tured by the evil Bergen Chef. Why would these sick­ly adorable Trolls ever be tak­en? That would be due to resent­ment of their con­sump­tion-dri­ven hap­pi­ness by the depressed and unfor­tu­nate look­ing Bergen crea­tures. Shout­ing out the moral of the sto­ry: hap­pi­ness comes from with­in – literally.

Along their jour­ney Pop­py and Branch meet a hip­ster cloud with train­er socks and a high five obses­sion. Soon enough, Pop­py breaks into song and dances across the can­dy-coat­ed jun­gles, stop­ping mid-track when her Hug-o-meter lights up and she fran­ti­cal­ly search­es for some­one to squeeze. She then returns to singing a bunch of musi­cal mash-ups à la Shrek – actu­al­ly, make that the worst of the Shreks. Pop­py attempts to ser­e­nade dis­grun­tled Branch which, refresh­ing­ly, leads to him to burn her ukulele, Then she stops mid-song when her Hug-o-meter lights up. She then sings anoth­er song. Hug-o-meter lights up. Song. Hug. Song. You can see where this is going.

Gal­lons of psy­che­del­ic con­fet­ti erupt into an epilep­sy induc­ing finale, with the annoy­ing­ly catchy hit song ​‘Can’t Stop the Feel­ing’ adding frost­ing onto the already blind­ing troll over­load. But that’s the prob­lem – you’re blind­ed by the fun and glit­ter, so it’s hard to resist bob­bing along to Justin and Anna croon­ing in uni­son. It’s fun, it’s a far bet­ter wrap song than Zoo­trop­o­lis’ ​‘Try Every­thing’ (sor­ry Shaki­ra), but Trolls real­ly doesn’t have much more to offer than the tal­ent­ed singing duo and a bunch of neon hued explosions.

It’s only once the kalei­do­scop­ic con­fet­ti falls to the ground does Trolls reveal it’s only colour, and it’s a bland one. But be pre­pared for a sequel or three, as Dream­Works Ani­ma­tion has acquired the rights to the Trolls fran­chise from the orig­i­nal Dam Fam­i­ly cre­ators. Sure­ly there will be anoth­er nos­tal­gic boom for these dia­mond bel­ly but­toned col­lectibles sweep­ing the world soon enough.