Trolls World Tour: A good man in a storm

Movie Reviewed: Trolls World Tour

Director: Walt Dohrn and David P. Smith

Date: 10 April 2020

jamesintexas Rating: **1/2



Great art can come from anywhere and everywhere, catching us with its surprise, its beauty, its resonance.  I think back to the first lightning bolt of hearing Fiona Apple's voice sing "Shadowboxer" when my 20th Century Novel & Politics class at Kenyon met for class in the Red Door Cafe or the thrill I experienced yesterday when a friend sent me a link to the NPR listening party for Apple's new album (and masterpiece) "Fetch the Bolt Cutters."  The much-talked about films Moonlight and Parasite took my breath away, as did seeing La La Land, so close after the 2016 Election, where it felt like a tonic of elegiac hope.  I was caught unawares by Call Me By Your Name, with its devastating final conversations and concluding, lingering shot as well as Sufjan Stevens' haunting music.  Sometimes, I go into a movie excited and anticipating because of the stars, the director, the subject matter.  I'm hungry for the last Daniel Craig James Bond film, now delayed as so much of our world is.  I'm eager to see what Don Winslow's books look like in a film or television series; I am watching Twin Peaks finally now approximately thirty years after I first saw it on my parents' television and was curious about it.  Trolls, the first film, though no epic and challenging work of art, held no such sway over me when it first came out.  As a parent, some films feel inevitable because they are geared at the right demographic: little kids who love everything.  I neither grew up with Trolls or cared for their world, cynically seeing the film as a cash grab.  I could not have been more wrong.  Crafted with great love and care, that film surprised me with its silliness, its slightly menacing environment of cruel Bergens and carnivorous plants, its plucky and sincere heroine Poppy (Anna Kendrick) and the cantankerous, gloomy Branch (Justin Timberlake), along with a panoply of wacky, colorful side characters, culminating in the irrepressible joy of "Can't Stop The Feeling!"  There was a little bit of Cyrano de Bergerac, with the Trolls as matchmakers, thrown in as King Gristle (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) and Bridget (Zooey Deschanel) fall for each other.  It was a joyous, surprisingly sweet story that because my kids Gus and Noli fell in love with it, I watched over and over and over.  And it held up and never seemed tiresome.  It was a surprise.

For Trolls World Tour,  lightning does not strike twice.  I am so thankful and appreciative that the film was available to rent and stream, and $20 during these times is a very affordable price to pay for the excitement of sitting down as a family to watch a new film with some beloved characters and an excess of glitter.  And, 48 hours with Trolls World Tour translated into a solid seven viewings of this film (don't judge my parenting).  So, I came back to it many times, dipping in and out of the film after the initial viewing.  And, it just does not capture the magic; Trolls World Tour feels overstuffed and scattered.  It has moments that are fun and almost great, but the film lacks what made the original so special. 

Here, Queen Barb (Rachel Bloom), a Rock-n-Roll Troll, dedicates herself to smashing up the other musical traditions in the Troll universe (Funk, Country, Techno, Classical, Pop, and Rock) and stealing the sacred strings that are the keys to musical harmony.  Queen Poppy undertakes a quest to make friendship with Barb and save their Pop Universe, and the resulting journey with Branch takes them to visit these different musical landscapes in service of uniting against Barb and preserving their own respective musical traditions.  Along the way, Branch has to negotiate his growing love for Poppy and telling her, while Cooper (Ron Funches) undergoes a journey to understand his own origins as an outsider.  Barb is fun in moments because she is not a true villain; she just wants to rock, loves her dad King Thrash (Ozzy Osbourne), and feels more misguided and myopic than misanthropic and malevolent.  I mean, she has a best friend named Carol whom she affectionately shouts out as Carol sprawls out on the couch eating Cheese Whiz from the can!  Growly Pete is a highlight from the Country universe of Lonesome Flats ruled by the fun Delta Dawn (Kelly Clarkson), with a pointed (and very dark) song about life being all about death.  There's pokes at Smooth Jazz and Yodeling and inevitable showdowns representatives of Reggaeton and K-Pop.  There's a grating number of quick musical medleys from the Spice Girls to Deee-Lite, from "Barracuda" to "Rock You Like a Hurricane," narrowly defining both Pop and Rock.  The stakes build to a giant musical epiphany which hinges on...gumdrops?  The final song does not overpower and bind the film the way Timberlake's "Can't Stop The Feeling!" did in the original, which in a film dedicated to celebrating music is a problem.  As a whole, Trolls World Tour is expansive and grander but feels less heartfelt than I wanted.  Queen Barb says at one point, "Friendship takes time and years of mutual care and respect," and I think the same goes for a great movie.  It feels rude to ding this movie for having five screenwriters but that tends to make it feel assembled and less unified; it just was not as much fun as it could have been, though the animation and color is often eye-popping and gorgeous.  I like that both films end in conversations and changes and friendship, not violent combat.

That being said, as Fiona Apple sings, "Sebastian said, 'I'm a good man in a storm,'" and it makes me think that is so in this stormy time; I am filled with gratitude for the chance to see a new movie that is dependable and entertaining and innocuous.  It is "a good man in a storm."  It never dwells in rudeness or unseemliness, is completely family friendly, and is fun in moments: burgers singing, Cloud Guy's opening narration, and a late cameo that makes me miss two characters from the first film even more.  The instantly iconic Tiny Diamond (Kenan Thompson) needs his own movie.  Country rescuer Hickory is voiced by a laconic Sam Rockwell, and George Clinton and Mary J. Blige arrive in the Land of Funk and state, "Denying our differences means denying what makes us human."   A few moments of wonderful weirdness come from Mr. Dinkles (one sequence particularly takes me back to Kenny in South Park: Bigger, Longer, Uncut), and anytime the plants and sun in the background can get in on the action and act out a bit, the film improves.  But this is not a good movie.  It is something that I am glad we saw, and I am even more glad that it expired after 48 hours and seven viewings.  It is a brisk ninety minutes.  Our family liked returning to this world, even though it was one of diminishing returns. 

Gus said, "The Heart Lesson is that even if you're different, you still matter," which fits, and you could really do a lot worse with a Heart Lesson from a children's movie.  Noli said, "Oh My!" at least seven times, which is her new expression that I love. 

Regardless, Trolls World Tour is the second best movie of 2020.

First Film of 2020: Onward and Upward

Movie Reviewed: Onward

Director: Dan Scanlon

Date: 5 April 2020

jamesintexas Rating: ***

"Long ago, the world was full of wonder.  It was adventurous.  It was exciting.  And most of all, there was magic."  We looked forward to some magic for probably two weeks when Disney+ announced that Onward would be on their channel streaming on April 3rd.  I made some homemade pizzas; we set up on the couch with popcorn and M&M's, with an eager Gus (6) and Noli (4).  Since we won't be going to the movies in the near future, Friday Movie Night was a big deal.  And Pixar, always dependable, delivered Onward, a very sweet, clever, solid family film that we have watched four more times since Friday night.

Set in a magical world where the magic has somewhat faded and tarnished, a place where unicorns are more apt to hiss at each other and fight over grazing out of trash cans than majestically soar the skies, young elves Ian (Tom Holland) and Barley (Chris Pratt) are brothers who live with mom Laurel (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) and miss their dad Wilden, who passed away before Ian was ever able to meet him.  Ian wakes up to his sixteenth birthday, pulls his dad's college sweatshirt on, and takes tentative steps towards friendship and independence while being thwarted by his own emotions (and sometimes, Barley). Barley, the older more gregarious brother, drives a van named Guinevere and is obsessed with magic lore and minutia; he serves as Ian's foil, but both receive a special gift from their dad that Laurel had stashed away in the attic until both boys were sixteen: a wooden staff with a spell promising a way for the dad to return.  Something goes awry, and the magic brings back only half of the dad, the bottom half.  The brothers (and half-dad) embark upon a quest to locate a magical stone that can finish the spell because it only lasts for 24 hours, meaning dad will totally disappear in that amount of time.  Laurel takes off after them, engaging in her own quest that leads her to join forces with the Manticore (Olivia Spencer), a once lauded warrior now the owner of a Medieval Times-ish Chuck E. Cheese restaurant.  There are biker fairies, a centaur police stepdad, many magical spells, homages to Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade, and a journey faced with traps and gauntlets as they work together to complete the quest.

Onward presents a fun world, one steeped in nods to The Lord of The Rings and Dungeons &  Dragons.  There is no real antagonist, which is refreshing, and the dad only being able to communicate with his feet ends up being really charming.  It is funny, not hilarious.  This is minor Pixar, and Scanlon directed Monsters University, a film that I would also include under that banner.  It is enjoyable with its focus on brotherhood, as well as two strong female co-leads in Laurel and The Manticore who prove very much up to the tasks of the quest.  The idea of speaking with your heart's fire is a fun conceit that rings true, and in general, Onward is such a warm, family-friendly film.  Gus said, "I like that it was not too scary," which I agree with, though I loved a surprise monstrous creation at the film's end, complete with a wonderful brick body, smiling face, and school bell ringing as part of its roar.  Blazey, Ian's pet dragon, seems like a relative of Randall from Monsters, Inc. and needs his own film.  Onward handles Ian's epiphany with a quick montage of memories from the film and earlier, with a dawning realization about his older brother which I found quite moving.  Maybe I was not as blown away by this world as I was by Nemo's or Sully and Mike's.  But I left with real admiration for the work of such caring, thoughtful storytellers.


My favorite film critic Roger Ebert said, "It's not what a movie is about; it is how it is about it."  Onward has a sweet, straightforward grace to it that makes it avoid meanness and cynicism.  It shows brothers who love each other, a mom willing to battle to let her kids get their chance to fulfill the quest, with everyone knowing that it won't totally dissolve pain.  Its characters cannot reverse the death of a loved one.  Instead, they just want to hold onto them for one day more, to give one more hug, to share one more lame joke.  There are many people that I wish I had one more day with: my grandparents, Mrs. K., Mr. Newton, Doc Caso, Phil Church, Roy Wortman.


Last, Gus says, "I love it so much because there was a dragon.  It made me think of my family.  It made me feel happy and a little scared."  Noli says, "I liked it very, very, very much.  So many.  Only the legs of their dad!"  Like so many, we are looking forward to when we can go back to watching movies in theaters as well.  Until then, this family will speak with our heart's fire, stay inside, and watch Onward.