A children’s film that is both visually unique and nasty. I enjoyed it as an art experiment, but will kids really enjoy a film where the human characters are more disgusting than the trolls? Maybe “enjoy” isn’t the right word…
What Works: The movie contains a nice message about not listening to fear mongers or hating things that are different than you, but it’s really the animation that’ll be the top draw here as I’ve never quite seen the visual style of this film. The nearest way to explain it is it’s like claymation figures with pastel make-up jobs, as each character’s face has been given hues of rouge-red and blushes of easter-egg blue. It took me a while to realize the style of what’s being shown is more beautiful (by a mile) than what’s actually being shown…
What Doesn’t: …Most of the characters are made obscenely, needlessly ugly and I’m not talking about the trolls (who look like mutated blue-skinned pugs, and live in a sewer off of trash). The film’s chief villain is so gross, he’s downright terrifying for smaller children, and there’s an extended gag involving a cheese allergy that made me quit eating my popcorn and re-evaluate some of my own eating choices.
What I Would Have Done Differently: The gross-out gags get to be a bit much, and will probably wind up alienating a lot of the children and families who are the target audience. This will probably be more loved by college students and graphic design majors than actual kids.
Haha!