The second dose of the kids animation follows the same bland template as the first – with chilling efficiency
The Trolls sequel is here: another eyeball-frazzlingly multicoloured screensaver movie for little kids, with all the aspartame hyperactivity of the first film – but less of the fun, and less (or even less) of the reason to exist in the first place. It’s a film which never relaxes to take a breath for a moment, and is swamped by its own frantic pace. Everything about it feels as if it has been designed and built by an AI programme, and that includes the (undoubtedly amusing) “grown up” gags for the older generation that are periodically spat out with the same algorithmic precision as everything else. (Although, oddly, these wised-up throwaway jokes are never allowed to acknowledge the fact that for most people, young and old, “trolls” are nasty mean people who infest social media. Part of what this film’s carapace of innocence is there for is to protect its audience against things like that.)
The message of the first Trolls film was happiness and love; and it’s the message of this one too – specifically the importance of harmony and diversity. So why does everything in this film look and sound the same?