Trolls World Tour

This review may contain spoilers!

You can expect a great soundtrack from these Trolls films but not much else to be frank. I would give Trolls World Tour a 4.5/10.

Trolls World Tour is the sequel to 2016's Trolls feature, reuniting us with 'Pop Trolls', Poppy and Branch, as they race to stop Barb the 'Rock Troll' from stealing all six of the musical strings. I think what this film really had going for it was an exploration on what is meant to be different, not just saying we should all be united as one but rather that we should celebrate difference. I felt this film managed a really complex narrative around the diversity and history of music and how that relates to our response to diversity and acceptance in real life. The soundtrack for this isn't quite as good as the first film but still totes some really excellent, covers, medleys, parodies and originals to enjoy.

Rachel Bloom, who voiced Barb, is an excellent antagonist for this sequel; she has a relentless drive and a degree of low self-esteem that makes her a strong foil for the protagonist, Poppy.

However, the best performance came from Anna Kendrick, who voiced Poppy. Both the first and second films have really lived and died on the central character of Poppy and how much energy Kendrick puts into voicing her. Poppy is such a vibrant voice with boundless optimism that really hooks you when she's onscreen. Poppy is this relentless character who believes in achieving the best from any situation. I liked that we got to see Poppy more as a nervous figure in this film, she wasn't confident about being a queen or even how to reconcile all the different Troll tribes. Making the main character of the film one who actually had to learn and understand the film's theme was a nice simple stroke of writing and performance I felt. As always Kendrick's singing is phenomenal and makes a number of the big songs in the soundtrack.

The story for this sequel starts pretty engaging at first but as the plot progresses it becomes abundantly apparent how little thought was really put into it. It's a very simple race between the good guys and the bad guys to collect the six different strings, and the antagonist's endgame to transform all the Trolls into 'rock-zombies' felt remarkably underwhelming. Beyond that the film ending this storyline with a note of 'the music is inside us all' felt very underwhelming considering how well explored the themes in the film had been explored up until this point. The random gags in this film were a lot more noticeable than in the first film but the quality of the comedy had dipped substantially. It was also pretty tough to see a romance subplot finally come to fruition between Poppy and Branch, the chemistry isn't really there and it is by far the blandest aspect of the script. The animation for this film doesn't ever really build off the first feature, in fact there is a lot of replication and repetition while also throwing in the occasional live-action animal for some weird attempt at comedy. Overall Trolls World Tour feels like an imitation of the first film at best; there is no surprise why this was rushed to digital rather than given a delayed release date.

Justin Timberlake, who voiced Branch, is a pretty monotonous protagonist when held up against Kendrick's strong performance; Timberlake never manages to find the chemistry between the pair in order to make the romance sub-plot half interesting. James Corden, who voiced Biggie, takes on just about any voice acting role and puts the same degree of effort into each one; Corden deadpans a number of lame jokes throughout this piece and doesn't serve the story beyond that. Ron Funches, who voiced Cooper, is given more responsibility than he can really manage in the shape of his own sub-plot this film; Funches doesn't have a voice that lends itself to the deep thematic exploration his role was at the centre of. Kelly Clarkson, who voiced Delta Dawn, isn't very interesting as the morose leader of the Country Trolls; Clarkson's heavy Southern accent and melancholy singing are just generic and fall flat. Sam Rockwell, who voiced Hickory, is a fantastic live action performer but hasn't found a strong role here in the voice acting medium; Rockwell's character is meant to be all charm yet lacks personality in the same manner as Timberlake's role. Kenan Thompson and Kunal Nayyar, who voiced Tiny Diamond and Guy Diamond respectively, are some of the ensemble voice cast with the worst comedic performances I had to hear; the weird Dad/baby relationship felt like a half-baked idea that never really found it's punchline. Walt Dohrn, who voiced King Peppy, loses all the personality Tambor brought to the character in the first film; Dohrn reduces what was one of the actual good characters to a role that spouts boring exposition the audience will swiftly lose interest in.