“I finally figured out a movie theater where I could semi-easily double without breaking my budget. Woo! And it turned out to be the perfect day to test this experiment too, since I either had some mild food poisoning or an alien baby was preparing to burst thru my chest at any moment. Armed with two bottles of Gatorade and a sleeve of saltines, I settled in. I mean hey, that’s how I would have taken care of myself at home too. Might as well watch a new movie at the same time.
And might as well watch something incredibly cute and happy when I was feeling very down and icky. I actually first started having high hopes of happy feels when the first video for “”Can’t Stop the Feeling”” was released, with lots of the cast members dancing. Srsly, I can’t hear that song without dancing. It boded well for the film.
Usually the problem with having a film based on something like a toy is trying to figure out a story that will make sense. Trolls did it pretty well. These trolls are always being hunted by creatures called Bergens, who believe that the only way to be happy is to eat a troll. After escaping and living in peace for twenty years, the trolls secret hideout is discovered and a group of trolls are kidnapped and taken back to Bergentown. Princess Poppy, the most outgoing and optimistic of the trolls teams up with Branch, the doom and gloom troll who knows more about the Bergens than any other troll, and they set out to rescue their friends and protect their people. Nothing too earth shattering but it works.
Part of the success of any good animated film hinges on the voice cast, and that was the first thing that Trolls nailed. Anna Kendrick, Justin Timberlake, Zooey Deschannel (who sounded amazing singing “”Hello””), James Corden, Chris Mintz-Plasse, Russel Brand, Christine Baranski, convinced yet? The humor was cute, but didn’t talk down too much.
The music was a good mix of originals and familiar songs. I actually just took a pause to download a couple of them. Besides the aforementioned Hello, True Colors was rather moving. Listening to it again is getting me kinda emotional. Just a beautiful interpretation of a beautiful song.
So a good way to kick off the holiday movie season, when you need to placate the kids with an entertaining film that won’t make you wanna claw your eyes out.
Trolls – \m/ \m/ \m/ \m/”