LogFAQs > #961850036

36. Trolls World Tour

Karo: 19
Inviso: 24
Evillord: 24
Johnbobb: 31
Ermine: 37
Red: 37

Total: 171

Karo: Everyone discovers suddenly that they are living in one of the six kingdoms of troll land that are each based off a type of music and the rock troll queen is trying to collect the six infinity strings so she can use their cosmic power to make all the other trolls shop at Hot Topic.
Poppy enthusiastically embarks on a quest to unite all the kingdoms against this villain, only to discover that the others actually hate the pop trolls because they steal everyones music. This is kind of ironic because every other musical genre featured in the movie's soundtrack has generally been popified to all hell.
The first problem with the film lies with the character of Branch, who is no longer the misanthropic hermit he used to be, yet they still try and duplicate the humor between him and Poppy that was central to the first movie. They go with a sort of 'wah, my girlfriend won't listen to me' thing to try and artificially generate conflict between the duo but it is not the same. They try to fill the void with singing, and I mean a LOT of singing. Like in the first movie they had songs in structured places to help enhance the impact of the story. Here it is just everyone constantly spewing out a diarrhetic deluge of random pop songs so much it is almost masturbatory.
This is very much the textbook example of a safe sequel, and the wonder of their world and its craft project backgrounds is somewhat blunted because I have seen it all before. It is certainly not offensive, but it is like eating a whole bag of candy. It may be a great experience in the moment but it has no substance and so it doesnt really stay with you.
However, its central message of togetherness is something the world could use right about now, and it is certainly not the worst thing we could be putting into kids' brains.

Inviso: Full disclosure: way back when we did the Dreamworks ranking, I liked Trolls 1 so much that I put it in my top ten. I bring this up, because I wouldnt be even remotely surprised if this film ends up in the bottom three of our collective lists, just based on previous opinions of likely rankers. So yeah, I didnt outright hate Trolls 2, even though I will admit that it is an extremely dumb movie. It manages to get a lot of points from me by nailing the jukebox musical aspect of its design. Having known, recognizable songs in flashy and colorful sequences was entertaining to me, personally. That being said, the first movie at least had a solid plot from beginning to end, whereas this movie felt like a very similar rehash, only without any of the coherent narrative and justification behind the villains motivations.

Also, you introduce the concept of six troll kingdoms, yet two only get a single scene in which the protagonists arent even around, two get a single scene where the protagonists are around, and Im pretty sure that, aside from the Techno Trolls, every single defeat by the Rock Trolls is completely off-screen. I dont even remember the Country Trolls getting captured or having their string taken away; they just show up in captivity at the end of the movie. But yeah, Poppy is still really annoying in her naivete, and Barbs whole I have no friends thing is REALLY weirdly shoehorned into the plot for like, two scenes where its relevant. If it wasnt for the fun music, Id rank this a lot lower, because it does nothing with the concept.

Evillord: I couldn't believe this fucking movie. It's your typical dreamworks garbage substituting dance parties, celebrity voice performances, and licensed music for creativity, but the villains are pretty much explicitly fascist and the subplot about the Funk Trolls has vibes of critical race theory. At that part where the troll doll princess is staring in despair at the flaming wreckage of her conquered kingdom something broke in me and I started laughing my head off. It doesn't come close to being a good movie, but I'm kind of glad I watched this.

Johnbobb: Better than the disastrous first movie in every single way. It's still Trolls, which is bad, and still features James Corden, which is worse, but it also delves oddly into the Trolls lore and features Rachel Bloom as the captivating main antagonist? The movie works better than it should've, which is not at all.

Ermine: Better than the first... but not by much. Poppy is still an insufferable character and despite hearing many people actually enjoyed Barb as a character, I absolutely hated her as well. There was one part I laughed which again, is more than the first movie provided but yeah, Trolls movies will always be shit.

Red: Do you remember the first Trolls movie? No? Well good because this movie doesn't either. I'm pretty sure that movie had a plot and this movie makes near 0 reference to that. Poppy is queen and that's all you need to know. And if you didn't know that you will when this movie grinds it into your head repeatedly. Characters from the first movie hopped dimensions and now the world is comprised just of Trolls attached to a few genres of music and you are going to be bombarded with easily recognizable songs for an hour and a half. I don't know if I could even talk about the plot because it just creates one big plot hole that will be handwaved off for another song.