The Trolls sequel is
here: another eyeball-frazzlingly multicoloured screensaver movie for little
kids, with all the aspartame hyperactivity of the first film – but less of the
fun, and less (or even less) of the reason to exist in the first place. It’s a film
which never relaxes to take a breath for a moment, and is swamped by its own
frantic pace. Everything about it feels as if it has been designed and built by
an AI programme, and that includes the (undoubtedly amusing) “grown up” gags
for the older generation that are periodically spat out with the same
algorithmic precision as everything else. (Although, oddly, these wised-up
throwaway jokes are never allowed to acknowledge the fact that for most people,
young and old, “trolls” are nasty mean people who infest social media. Part of
what this film’s carapace of innocence is there for is to protect its audience
against things like that.)
The message of the
first Trolls film was happiness and love; and it’s the message of this one too
– specifically the importance of harmony and diversity. So why does everything
in this film look and sound the same?
Perky troll queen
Poppy (voiced by Anna Kendrick) is still ruling over her domain happily enough
with the help of her friend Branch (Justin Timberlake), who is unable to
confess his feelings for her. But this film, with a bit of sleight-of-hand, now
reveals the importance of the queen’s name. They have pretty much always
thought of themselves specifically as pop trolls: pop music is their thing.
Because it is revealed to Poppy that the troll kingdom is bigger than they
thought, and there are other music-based troll kingdoms: Funk, Classical,
Techno, Country and Rock. The Techno trolls are shown at the beginning in all
their U-certificate techno-lite-ness.
But Barb, queen of the
Hard Rock Trolls (voiced by Rachel Bloom), daughter of Thrash (voiced by – who
else? – Ozzy Osbourne) is on a world-tour mission to conquer all the other
troll kingdoms and make them submit to the awesome majesty of rock. It appears
that way back in the mists of time, the six types of music were six strings on
a mystical Orphean lyre, which were separated and given to each troll monarch.
Barb plans to collect all six strings as trophies, put them on her guitar and
play one single devastating power chord: a Tolkienian moment which will
establish her dominion. That’s unless Poppy can win her over with the winsome,
unthreatening world of pop, and convince Barb that all types of music can
co-exist happily.
In some ways, Trolls
World Tour wants to absorb the established brand of School of Rock, and maybe
even a little bit of the hard-rock guitarist to be seen on the front of that
huge speeding rig in Mad Max: Fury Road. But the flavour and the texture is
mulched in with everything else here. In some ways, it’s an achievement to have
finessed a dramatic and musical arrangement in which all different types of
music (even including Reggaeton and K-Pop) are all squished together on
indistinguishable equal terms: a more adult kind of film might well have been
paralysed by considerations of identity politics.
But there is something
absolutely robotic about Trolls World Tour: the voices, the design, the
dialogue, the plot progressions, the break-up-make-up crisis between Poppy and
Branch, everything. It’s chillingly efficient, like a driverless car going
round in circles.