In 2016, DreamWorks Animation took the furry-headed little toys from the ‘80s and gave us Trolls starring Anna Kendrick and Justin Timberlake. It was a cute adventure, perfect for its young target audience with its undeniably fun soundtrack full of classic pop covers as well as original songs. The film’s message was slightly muddled but the film, on the whole, is adorable.
Now, with Trolls World Tour available on VOD rental services, these trolls are back..and honestly? Better than ever. It’s an adorable film filled with a great cast of characters and voice performances with a story that tops the first. Trolls World Tour has something to say about the trolls universe, about the music in our universe and the way that our differences bring us together.
Trolls World Tour finds Poppy (Kendrick) and Branch (Timberlake) learning that they are not alone in troll-dom and that there are six total realms of trolls, each represented by a different genre of music: country, techno, funk, classical, rock and pop. These six nations used to live in harmony until the six nations took their magical music strings and went their separate ways. But Queen Barb (Rachel Bloom) of the hard rock trolls has plans to overthrow the trolls of all six nations, stealing their magic strings and uniting them under the power of rock.
World Tour brings back a lot of the fever dream-like aesthetic of the first film, but with a richer music catalog and better world-building. It’s fun to see trolls from all of troll-dom represented by the different types of music with songs from Daft Punk, Beethoven, Spice Girls and Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch. Each group of trolls has its own visual style that makes them as unique as their music; country music trolls look like horses, classical trolls look like cherubs, and techno trolls look like…robotic fish with headphones.
The film smartly moves away almost entirely from the lame, boring Bergens from the first film and makes a troll the villain this time. Barb is a villain with understandable intentions. She wants to bring the trolls together under the music that she believes is the best.
Queen Barb’s goal in taking the musical strings by force is to forge them into her guitar and play the “ultimate power chord”, uniting all trolls under the power of rock. But while Poppy initially sees the unification and harmony of all the trolls as a good thing, she soon starts to realize that the various types of music that once divided the trolls are actually what makes them unique and it is that same uniqueness that is so important.
Poppy learns what many of us are continuing to learn every day. The differences between us are what make the world such a rich thing to explore. Different tastes, looks, cultures, and experiences working together is far better than all of us having the exact same experiences. It’s a beautiful world that both we and the trolls live in where everyone has something to bring to the table. Creating a homogenous society without diversity of experiences, cultures or opinions isn’t a society worth living in at all. It’s a lesson that both kids and adults could stand to learn.
I don’t imagine many adults are going to hunker down during this time of quarantine to enjoy a sequel to a movie that they probably didn’t care about in the first place. But for those with kids that enjoyed the first film, Trolls World Tour is a step up from the first movie with better comedic moments, better music, a better story, and a better message. It’s a great time for kids and one that won’t make parents want to pull their hair out–no matter how tall and how colorful that hair may be.
RATING: C+
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