Trolls Band Together – Film Review

We’d like to know which got here first. Was it the concept for Trolls Band Collectively, with its easy narrative of a boy-band breaking apart and later needing to reunite to save lots of one in every of their members? Or was it the choice to reunite NSYNC, the 90’s boy band that includes Trolls voice actor Justin Timberlake, with that band offering among the songs in Trolls Band Collectively? It’s a boy-band model of the Rooster and the Egg. It makes you surprise how these cross-media initiatives occur. 

We may cynically have a look at Trolls Band Collectively as a advertising ploy for the NSYNC model, however that will be ignoring the sheer gravitational pull that the Trolls motion pictures have over youngsters of a sure age. For a month now, we’ve been experiencing a Trolls resurgence in our home, and we want we saved all of the toys from the primary two motion pictures. So, calling it a cash-grab can be doing it a disservice. It’s clearly bought better enchantment than that.

The plot of Trolls Band Collectively isn’t too dissimilar from the primary two movies. Trolls get captured, Poppy and Department head off to save lots of them, and so they collect an entourage on the best way. Medleys are sung, music genres are straddled, and Justin Timberlake and Anna Kendrick get to deal with the film as a jukebox of hits that they’ve at all times needed to sing. Jobs a great’un.

This time spherical, the troll-damsel is Floyd (Troye Sivan). He’s Department’s long-lost brother, and he’s been captured by the heinous Viva and Veneer (Camilla Cabello and Andrew Rannells), an auto-tuned pop duo who’re syphoning his troll magic to make them higher performers. Department needs to save lots of Floyd, however Floyd is trapped in an impenetrable glass barrier that may solely be damaged by the Excellent Concord. The one individuals who can obtain the proper concord are the boy-band BroZone, which Floyd and Department had been as soon as members of. Department must get the band collectively (movie title unlocked!), however meaning reconciling with their brothers, who would moderately not be reconciled.

And so we have now our Troll journey: Poppy is gobsmacked that Department was in her once-favourite band, and desires of getting a long-lost sibling too (you may in all probability guess the place that want goes). Tiny Diamond is alongside for the trip, whereas the troll brothers – by means of a collection of trials and occasions – spherical out the remainder of the crew. Will the outdated brotherly enmities resurface? Will the brothers reunite in time to save lots of Floyd? Will the songs all be sung by NSYNC? You possibly can in all probability guess the reply to all of those.

Whereas all the things is acquainted and undoubtedly fairly – the Trolls franchise have an uncelebrated capability to create tactile worlds that you just simply wish to snuggle up with – Trolls Band Collectively can’t assist feeling prefer it has diminished throughout, nicely, just about each class. There’s no singular component that you’d level to and say ‘That! That’s clearly garbage!’, however all the things looks like an insubstantial echo of what got here earlier than.

One thing we and the household liked about Trolls World Tour (nonetheless the top of the franchise to date) is that it was a tour of musical genres. These genres created the map of the world, and a fiction was creating that made sense. However in Trolls Band Collectively, that’s all however deserted. The locations we go to aren’t separated by style, they’re simply deserted carnivals and neon casinos that you might discover in any animated film. Viva and Veneer aren’t embodiments of a musical style, except they signify over-produced, auto-tuned fashionable music. However we don’t suppose that Trolls Band Collectively is intelligent sufficient to make that form of assertion. They’re extra a piss-take of social media hungry generations. Yawn – yeah, we’re going there once more.

Then there’s the songs. They’re first rate – ‘Higher Place’ particularly is on repeat in our home – however they’re no Trolls World Tour. They keep wilfully within the boy band and pop genres, and that’s a missed alternative. By letting Justin Timberlake and NSYNC preside so closely over the soundtrack, it loses its breadth.

And extra so than the earlier motion pictures, the fan service is kicking in. We’ve bought a big solid of trolls and bergens now, and DreamWorks received’t promote toys in the event that they don’t embody all of them. So, there’s a whole lot of shoe-horning, as different characters are proven or introduced alongside when the plot may need been that little bit tauter with out them. Whenever you’ve bought the 5 brothers to gather all through the film (plus the apparent sideshow of a Poppy sibling), that’s a major solid record.

We’d be mendacity if we stated it wasn’t entertaining, although. There’s a enjoyable interlude into hand-drawn animation, when Tiny Diamond presses the ‘Hustle’ button on their car. The Trolls movies nonetheless have a knack for turning musical numbers into motion sequences, with an ending that’s appropriately catchy and dynamic. And there’s enjoyable available in some boyband pisstakes, plus the manchildren having to develop into adults for as soon as.

Trolls Band Collectively is the worst of the Trolls motion pictures, however that’s extra testomony to the standard of them to date. It has all of the components of a Trolls film, however – like Floyd, who’s used like a battery by the dangerous guys within the film – it feels drained of its regular sass. The songs don’t sing like earlier than; the world appears that bit extra generic; the character roster is extra overstuffed.

Trolls followers will lap up Trolls Band Collectively, in fact, however there’s a sense {that a} reinvention is required for a fourth film. The components is beginning to present, and the Trolls want greater than glitter to patch over the cracks.