Delayed Reaction: Trolls World Tour

Premise: The Rock Trolls try to take over all other musical Troll kingdoms.

 

Talk about a movie I'd rather see in live action. Anna Kendrick. Justin Timberlake. Rachel Bloom. Kelly Clarkson. Sam Rockwell. Mary J. Blige. Kenan Thompson. This is a stacked cast offering voice performances (not to be confused with a stacked cast of voice actors). I think I'd even be good with a version of this shot with the Cats technology. Then again, I probably don't need those nightmares.

 

I like how virtually every 2020 movie has a story behind its release. Due to theater closures, everything was either bumped, released elsewhere, or tanked at the box office. Trolls World Tour was the great VOD hope, earning $100 million through digital rentals. I'm not sure how that will get noted in the ledger years from now, but it sure is interesting to think about in comparison to the Disney+ Mulan release or the Wonder Woman: 1984 HBOMax release.

I don't remember the first Trolls at all. I mean, there were trolls, and singing, and Anna Kendrick and Justin Timblerlake. That's it though. Thankfully, it's a kid’s movie series, so World Tour caught me back up pretty quickly.

 

I like the idea of the different troll music kingdoms and the loose mythology of the strings. I'd love to see the inevitable term paper written about what genres the kingdoms actually should've been to encapsulate all the shades of music. There must be college students as insane and bored as me out there. World Tour certainly gets lost in its own mapping pretty quickly, and I like the idea that the map they were using is out of date. I imagine tracking the troll kingdoms is like looking at maps on 19th century Europe. Remember the Ottoman Empire? Is that the troll equivalent of rockabilly? I'd certainly love to hear the screenwriter's deeper thoughts on the idea of Pop music attempting to eat up the other genres and how Rock was chosen as the form to attack all the others. The answer from the people who came up with this is probably "I don't know. We just know more Rock songs", but I like to imagine someone had to go really in depth in preparation for this.

 

This movie is...fine. The music is safe and ok. I can't complain about the collection of talent assembled, although I do have some qualms with Kelly Clarkson being used for country. There are enough dumb jokes to keep me entertained. I didn't hate it, but I certainly wouldn't recommend it. Definitely don't watch it if your brain is like mine and can't help from dissecting the mythology the movie creates. Why does Funk get its own kingdom, yet soul, blues, and jazz don't!?

 

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend