Anna Daniels
Trolls World Tour is genuinely good at what it does. The character designs oscillate between charming (our two leads), funny (the Smooth Jazz Troll, with his twirling moustache and ample supply of chest hair), and downright odd (the Country Trolls, who resemble centaurs), but they’re never boring. The animation is smooth and impeccably timed to the pulsing soundtrack.
The environments are, maybe, the coolest thing about Trolls World Tour. Each one looks like it’s been hand-made in someone’s crafting room. The Pop Trolls’ kingdom, for example, is made out of felt and yarn. The Rock Trolls’ domain is all denim and leather. The sand in a barren desert is made up of gold glitter that sparkles under the bright sun. Whether or not you like the music is going to be a matter of taste (and you won’t find anything here you haven’t heard on the radio a thousand times), but at least the multi-genre set-up means there’s some variety.
The thing is, that’s all that Trolls World Tour does. It’s fun to look at, but the sensory assault gets old pretty quick without a story to prop it up. It’s a film that was designed for the theater, where spectacle works better. As it is, if you’re an adult — or even an older child — don’t expect to stay glued to your couch for the whole movie. The jokes are never offensively bad, but they’re not going to elicit more than a small smile. There are small efforts at delivering actual emotional payoffs, but the whole premise is so slight — Poppy’s big lesson is that she needs to be a better listener, which isn’t exactly a groundbreaking personal transformation — that the character beats don’t really resonate. Pixar, this ain’t.
But Trolls World Tour isn’t for adults. It’s for kids. It’s easy to imagine small children finding the movie’s hypnotic visuals and non-stop energy utterly entrancing. If you have little ones who’ve been cooped up at home for weeks, Trolls World Tour really might give them a much-needed respite.
Really, that’s all you can ask of it. Trolls World Tour won’t move the needle for simultaneous day-and-date releases on VOD services in either direction. If you’re an adult who’s craving something new to watch, you’ll be better served hunting for deep-buried gems on Netflix or other streaming services.
Trolls World Tour has modest goals, and for the most part, it meets them. Trolls World Tour is not a watershed moment in movie history. It’s a distraction for the five-and-under crowd. Judge Trolls World Tour on its own merits and it does just fine. Ask it to do anything else, and it simply isn’t up to the task.
Written by: Looper
