Trolls Band Together review

TROLLS BAND TOGETHER: 

THIRD TROLLS OUTING IS MORE OF THE SAME UPBEAT ENERGY! 

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: ** ½ out of 4

UNIVERSAL PICTURES AND DREAMWORKS ANIMATION

Poppy and Viva in Trolls Band Together

 

            The Trolls are back to sing songs and entertain your little kids in Trolls Band Together, the third installment of DreamWorks’ Trolls trilogy and sequel to 2020’s Trolls: World Tour. If you read my reviews for the other movies then you know I didn’t fully get into the first Trolls back in 2016, but I didn’t hate or even dislike it. 

            It was a mostly harmless animated film for kids with colorful and bouncy animation, some imaginative designs, and energetic song sequences. Not one of DreamWorks’ worst, but certainly nowhere near the quality of Shrek, Kung Fu Panda, How to Train Your Dragon, and just recently Puss in Boots: The Last Wish. 

            The second film, Trolls: World Tour released in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, I actually kind of enjoyed. Still not a great film mind you, but I thought it was more interesting seeing the characters explore different troll worlds and interact with other trolls each with their own distinct style of music instead of just the same sugar-coated pop songs you can hear on the radio for free, not to mention the main villain was a heavy metal Troll, love it. 

            Even though I found some amusement in World Tour, I wasn’t exactly hyped for the third movie when it was announced, and the trailers didn’t really win me over either. Maybe that was for the best as this film goes right back to the first movie’s formula that I wasn’t that fond of to begin with, lots of pop and boy-band songs, mostly non-threatening imagery, and a recycled “Getting the band back together” plot, that’s literally the entire movie. 

            The film follows Poppy (voiced by Anna Kendrick-Scott Pilgrim VS the World, Pitch Perfect trilogy, A Simple Favor), the Queen of the Pop Trolls and her boyfriend Branch (voiced by Justin Timberlake-The Social Network, Friends with Benefits, In Time) preparing for the wedding of their Bergen friends Bridget (voiced by Zooey Deschanel-Elf, New Girl, (500) Days of Summer) and King Gristle Jr. (voiced by Christopher Mintz-Plasse-Superbad, How to Train Your Dragon trilogy, Pitch Perfect). But a mysterious troll crashes the wedding who reveals himself to be Branch’s brother and enlists his help. 

It turns out Branch’s brother named John Dory (voiced by Eric André-The Eric André Show, Sing 2, The Mitchells VS the Machines) is the former leader of the boy-band Branch was part of known as BroZone and that one of their brothers was captured and put into a diamond prison that can only be broken with the Perfect Family Harmony. 

Poppy, Branch, John Dory, and for some reason Tiny Diamond (voiced by Kenan Thompson-All That, Good Burger 1 and 2, Saturday Night Live) embark on another music-filled adventure to get the band back together and save their brother from a brother-sister duo of talentless hacks. 

            The film also features the voices of Camila Cabello (Cinderella (2021), Rob Peace) as Poppy’s long-lost sister Viva, Kid Cudi (Don’t Look Up, X, Silent Night) as Clay, Troye Sivan (Boy Erased) as Floyd, Daveed Diggs (Hamilton, Soul, The Little Mermaid (2023)) as Spruce, Amy Schumer (Trainwreck, Snatched, I Feel Pretty) as Velvet, Andrew Rannells (A Simple Favor, The Boys in the Band, The Prom) as Veneer, Zosia Mamet (Mad Men, The Kids Are All Right, The Flight Attendant) as Crimp, RuPaul (EDtv, Zombies 3, Nimona) as Miss Maxine, Kunal Nayyar (The Big Bang Theory, Ice Age: Continental Drift, Sanjay and Craig) as Guy Diamond, Kevin Michael Richardson (Lilo & Stitch, Ratchet & Clank, The Cleveland Show) as Mr. Dinkles, and Patti Harrison (A Simple Favor, Together Together, The Lost City) as Brandy. 

            Overall, Trolls Band Together gives exactly what it advertises and doesn’t try to be anything more, for better or for worse. This really is DreamWorks’ answer to Pixar’s Cars franchise which exists primarily because it’s popular and that it makes a ton of money which is why the storylines aren’t all that engaging nor are the characters very memorable unless you grew up with these movies or if there’s some hidden brilliance behind these films that I’m just not seeing or understanding. 

            The plot hits just about every beat you’d expect from a movie like this and offers very little in terms of surprises. It’s not insultingly lazy or uninspired, it just seems like the people behind the film knew the target audience and what people expect out of a Trolls film and simply…gave them what they wanted in hopes it would be successful. 

            But even then, there are some glaring narrative inconsistencies for those who have seen the other movies. Most of it is aimed at how the BroZone storyline is integrated and the detail about Poppy listening to them all the time and being completely unaware that her boyfriend used to be in it, it makes no sense and there’s really no point in trying to analyze a dumb kids cartoon that isn’t all that deep to begin with. 

            The humor is also very lackluster with some jokes being genuinely funny and even clever at times while others are easy kid jokes with equally simple punchlines. That entire bit used in the trailers where they reference Boys II Men, One Direction, and Backstreet Boys is easily the worst joke in the entire film that’s so forced and painful it’s Scuttlebuttfrom the Little Mermaid remake bad. 

            What the film lacks in writing and storytelling, it somewhat gains in animation and art design. One thing I will always praise the Trolls movies for is they have some beautiful and vibrant animation with wildly imaginative designs that feel like an arts n crafts project come to life. 

            Characters made out of felt, vines that look like they’re made out of pipe-cleaners, and there’s even some characters in this movie that resemble Muppets except they’re CG. All this leads me to believe that despite being a studio-controlled project, the animators and artists put their A-game in the look of the film and really thought out of the box with the designs of everything, you can definitely see the love and care they put into it. 

            The song sequences are upbeat with a lot of energy and the choices of songs are fine for this kind of movie, but hardly anything memorable. The only song sequence I thoroughly enjoyed was this cover of Eurythmics’ Sweet Dreams Are Made of This sung by the film’s villains and that it was used in an action scene. 

            Aside from some appealing animation, a few decent jokes, and one entertaining song sequence, Trolls Band Together will be best enjoyed by young audiences only. But that doesn’t necessarily make it a bad movie, just a movie that appeals only to its target audience and that’s it.