First of all, I don't feel the need to put the same bullshit stamp of equivocation here at the start of the review that every other movie review of every other children's movie includes: "I should note that, yes, this movie is meant for kids." Fuck that. The creators of the Trolls entertainment complex know damn well that parents are going to be roped into watching this shit too. If you can't throw us a bone, then you deserved to be thrown under a truck like every normal filmmaker.
How many bones was I thrown throughout the course of Trolls: World Tour? Not many, but I could probably use two hands to count them, and that's more than many boneless children's films I've seen in the past couple years (e.g. Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, which is undoubtedly the worst movie of all time). There's a bit where Ozzy Osbourne voices an elderly troll, for example, that works on both a kid level and an adult level ("that old troll is silly" vs. "holy shit this is the perfect casting of Ozzy Osbourne"). I mean, most of the jokes are stolen wholesale from TV Tropes, but that doesn't mean they can't land every once in a while. I'll withstand having to watch a troll shit out a lit birthday cake if it means I get to watch the Justin Timberlake troll made to look like the dumbest troll alive.
But no one is coming to Trolls: World Tour for the fucking jokes. We're watching Trolls: World Tour for the RAWK 'N' ROLL!! Personally, I am in that small sliver in the middle of the Venn Diagram of people who take music seriously and also people who watch Trolls: World Tour, so let's talk about the movie in that context.
I could nitpick, and say that there was a lot of misleading bullshit about music in Trolls: World Tour. For example, the "techno trolls" listen to Daft Punk. Daft Punk is not techno music, for one. For two, didn't the so-called "pop trolls" listen to the same music at a rave in the first movie? What a fucking retcon! Also, who's to say that Daft Punk isn't pop? Pam looked it up on her Apple Music—they consider Daft Punk's 2013 album Random Access Memory "pop." Hip hop is basically pop now too, but they are rolled in with the "funk trolls." "Rock trolls" basically just play all popular '80s rock and hair metal, and completely ignore every other substrain of the rock and roll continuum (where are my "blog rock trolls" voiced by Alec Ounsworth?!).
Like I said—nitpicky for sure. Especially considering that the overall message of the movie is that we shouldn't worry about certain music being considered one thing and other music being considered another thing, and that we should all just enjoy what we like and appreciate that there's other music out there. I can get behind that message, even if it comes at the expense of certain genres anyway (smooth jazz never gets redemption; note that the song that brings all trolls together is a shitty pop song; etc.).
I can get behind the message because it's a necessary anti-snobbery message that I learned way too late in life. There really is a ton of music out there, and a lot of it is very fucking good. There's also a lot of bad music out there, really awful noxious fucking music that millions of people still love dearly, and ya know what? It doesn't fucking matter. It makes no difference how many weeks in a row Post Malone camps out in the Billboard Hot 100, because music you can like and appreciate is out there anyway, waiting to be discovered.
If there's one thing I hope kids get from this film, it's that Rachel Bloom is the hardest rocker of our generation. Just kidding! She seems like she's having fun singing all those rock classics, but I actually think that this touches on possibly the biggest disservice doled out by Trolls: World Tour. I googled "who sings rock you like a hurricane" the other day, and the #2 hit was "'Rock You like a Hurricane' by Rachel Bloom." I also came home the other day to find Willow, et al, listening to the Trolls: World Tour soundtrack, which features all songs you know featuring the voices of the trolls. Willow is going to grow up thinking that the famous Cyndi Lauper song is called "Trolls Just Want to Have Fun." That makes me a little uncomfortable!
To be clear, I don't have a problem with the existence of a song called "Trolls Just Want to Have Fun." It's still a great song, and the animation during the big dance sequence is quite fun. But at a certain point, I question why kids wouldn't want to just listen to "Girls Just Want to Have Fun." I almost am tempted to make a playlist of all the original songs that are covered in Trolls: World Tour. Wouldn't it be cool if my kids heard Black Sabbath do "Crazy Train" and they actually sort of recognized it?
There are a couple of original songs in the movie, including a hip-hop track from an Anderson .Paak troll, who raps about how pop trolls stole music from the rest of the trolls and made money off it (there's an argument to be made that the movie could've done more with this allusion to the dark history of rich white men making money off of talented black artists, but I also wonder how that would even be possible in a generally light and goofy kids movie). These songs are mediocre at best, but I would prefer them to "Atomic Dog" being repurposed for an action sequence score.
Should I have talked about the plot more? Does anyone reading this give a fuck? The trolls discover that there are "strings" that represent all the different genres of music, and the evil Queen Barb is trying to steal them all so that she can remake the world in her own rock 'n' roll image, and... yeah, we don't need to talk about this. It's a mostly shitty movie with some redeeming comedic moments and a questionable grip on musical heritage. I could take it or leave it. Most days, I'm praying that Willow leaves it. Most days, she's watching it three times.
GRADE: 2 pukes out of 5
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