Trolls World Tour

Today I checked out “Trolls World Tour,” which was released on “Video On Demand” today, and I will let everyone know what I thought about it.

In 2016, “Trolls” gave us the glittery, polychromatic world of the eponymous small, singing, dancing beings. They had a rather nice, though predictable, story helped by the handful of pop songs that worked into the story. Now the trolls are back in “Trolls World Tour,” which enlarges the world of the trolls, including its musical collection, and is all the better for it. While the movie still has a similar colorful artistic, this film introduces a lot more shades of grey while telling nice lessons about tolerance and leadership.

“Trolls World Tour” starts by introducing a new colony of trolls, whose techno music, is interrupted by the hard-rock trolls, led by punk-rocker Queen Barb, voiced by Rachel Wood. Barb makes a plan to bring the trolls together by uniting them under rock – and expunging every other type of music. From there the movie takes us back to the colony of the trolls we know from the first film – labeled here as the pop trolls – where the group learns about Barb’s plans and that there are, actually, six tribes of trolls whose musical differences made them separate long ago.

Even though her father (Walt Dohrn) warns her and Branch (Justin Timberlake), Queen Poppy (Anna Kendrick) can’t imagine of a place where Barb’s purposes could be bad. She believes in the idea of uniting the trolls again and believes Barb wants to celebrate their differences like she does. That makes her go off to find Barb and help her on her journey. She’s teamed up by a hesitant Branch and passengers Biggie (James Corden) and Mr. Dinkles (Kevin Michael Richardson). As they travel they stop by the places of the classical music trolls, the country music trolls and the funk trolls.

Cynthia Vinney said in her review, “Barb’s desire to oppress those with other musical tastes and Poppy’s inability to listen to anyone else’s concerns are thinly veiled metaphors for the evils of intolerance and the need to listen to others, even those you might not agree with. Although these aren’t the most revolutionary ideas, the movie presents them in a fun music-filled way that will appeal to both children and adults.”

The different type of music all over the movie makes it even more charming. Even though the pop music that helped the first movie is still here, it’s really nice to hear the voices of a wide range of musical artists voicing different characters. Kelly Clarkson sings a sad country song, Anderson .Paak raps a lesson about the trolls’ dangerous history, rock star legend Ozzy Osborne plays Barb’s aged father and classic singers Mary J. Blige and George Clinton appear as the King and Queen of the funk trolls.

As everyone knows, “Trolls World Tour’s” was tasked to being the first studio movie to not be released in theaters and instead be released directly on “Video on Demand” with the coronavirus epidemic. Vinney said, “Many will be watching to see how the movie fares, with some suggesting that if Trolls World Tour does well, it could have long-lasting implications for theatrical movie-going. It’s easy to see the movie having success on-demand. After all, it’s the first new big-budget movie available to viewers in almost a month, plus it has the added appeal of keeping antsy house-bound children occupied for an hour and a half.” When seeing that, Universal’s choice to release “Trolls World Tour” for home viewing makes sense. However, that also means it’s a task that won’t work for every upcoming large movie, and will be unlikely to destroy the traditional theatrical release.

Vinney said, “Ultimately, Trolls World Tour is an exuberant blast of big-screen movie energy that those who choose to watch it at home will appreciate. Fans of the first Trolls will find more to love here, and those who were only lukewarm on that movie are likely to appreciate the expansion of the trolls’ world.” Even though every movie that did not get delayed due to the coronavirus, it works for the small world of “Trolls World Tour,” which actually is an entertaining and hopeful distraction from what we’re experiencing currently.

If you saw the first movie and liked it, it wouldn’t hurt to check this sequel out On Demand. It’s a nice little harmless family flick with a lot of diverse songs in here that should get kids and maybe even parents up and dancing. Check it out and see for yourself.

Thank you for joining in on today’s review. Stay tuned next week for the continuation of “Jackie Chan Month.”