If you can stand not to claw your own eyeballs out after the first ten minutes, I almost recommend this film. What more could you want? Singing? Dancing? Humor? Good message? The only drawback is it’s just constantly delivered by creatures so giddy and upbeat they make The Smurfs look like Judgment at Nuremberg.
And, indeed, the heart of the conflict in Trolls is feelings and how to get on the bright side of them. Trolls are essentially multicolored Smurfs – a tiny, isolationist community of big-hair insects. They have good reason to be isolationist: their blah human-size tormentors, the Bergens (Edgar and Candice), don’t feel happy until they eat one. And so on Bergen Christmas, all the Trolls are rounded up and feasted upon like ankle-high Eloi. For some reason, these Pez-colored morons never thought to run away and, hence, start the movie by making up for lost time. Years in the future, they live in peace and harmony constantly singing, dancing and making 3D invitations for more singing and dancing.
I know what you’re thinking: “Jim, how could you stand this film?” It’s a valid question, to be sure. And it was trying. I feel like I got a cavity just by watching the opening credits. But, to be fair, I was fond of both leads: Branch (voice of Justin Timberlake), the one monochromatic-grey, doomsaying Troll –he hates all things song and dance—and Princess Poppy (Anna Kendrick), who seems to believe all of life’s challenges can be solved by scrapbooking. That’s funny. No question.
Back to plot, the party celebrating Tuesday afternoon or whatever gets a little too out-of-hand, and before you know it, outcast Bergen Chef (Christine Baranski) has found these Day-Glo toadstools. Geez, fellas, how hard were you looking? Time for a Bergen feast.
It’s impossible not to 
compare Trolls to Smurfs. While equally as off-putting in appearance, these neon hors d’oeuvres are slightly better off than their personality-challenged azure cousins. Perhaps it’s the DreamWorks influence, but this film exceeds either blue cousin picture in almost every measure possible besides cinematography. If watching the screen weren’t akin to taking a cheese grater to my gums, I might even be enjoying myself.
Trolls is a misogynist’s nightmare; almost every cell screams, “PASTELS! FEELINGS! SONG!” This is definitely a movie in which plot resolution cannot come without emotional resolution. Indeed, the two are so intertwined in Trolls, they may as well be the same thing. It will be impossible for young girls to avoid watching this film again and again. Impossible. Don’t fight it, it’s really not bad. It even has a lovely message. But for God’s sake, adults, don’t look at the screen. Just read a book while it’s on, ok? Trust that film will neither scar pre-pubescent psyches nor injure pre-pubescent eyeballs.
♪I got this feelin’ inside my nerves
My head just swivels, pivots, dips and swerves
All through the movie, up on the screen
It’s surging from my throat to deep inside my spleen
I got the contents of my stomach
Coming out to see my feet
I feel that nausea in my body when it drops
Can’t seem to take my eyes up off ‘em, that neon colored Smurf meat
Those pert annoying upbeat little glops
Without the lights, and the screening show
My trepidation beginning to grow
When they sing, it’s beginning to flow
Regurgitation, -gurgitation, -gurgitation
Can’t stop my reelin’
So just rant, rant, rant
Can’t stop my reelin’
So just wretch, wretch, wretch, go on♫
Rated PG, 92 Minutes
D: Walt Dohrn, Mike Mitchell
W: Jonathan Aibel & Glenn Berger
Genre: 90-minute Skittles commercial
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Girls too young for Pitch Perfect
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Foes of bright colors
♪ Parody inspired by “Can’t Stop the Feeling“
