Vulture Reviews: Trolls World Tour

Welcome back to Vulture Reviews. Well, it seems time to go back to those obnoxiously sappy trolls. If you read my review of the original Trolls, you'd know that I... don't think very highly of it. In fact, I consider it to be among the worst films from DreamWorks has ever put out. On the topic of the sequel however, I actually thought it had some legitimate potential. I was intrigued with the concept of the kingdoms based on music genres and it seemed it could potentially be a massive improvement over the original. SPOILER ALERT: it was not that. Shall we begin?

Positives-Just like the first film, the biggest positive I can give this film is the animation. In fact, it's even better. All of the music kingdoms have a unique style and setting that manages to fit well with their respective genre. My personal favorites are the lava rock kingdom, the western country kingdom, and the underwater techno kingdom. As well has just having an insanely well developed and interesting world that bursts with creativity. Something I will also give credit to is the villain Barb. She is insanely funny with how much of a metalhead stereotype she is (and her dad is Ozzy Osbourne).

Negatives-The biggest problem with this movie is the exact opposite of the first film. Where the first was too straightforward and bland, this one is too complicated and all over the place. I know I was just praising this movie's new concepts, but they lead to a LOT of plot holes. There is shown to only be a kingdom for the primary six genres, so where do the other genres(smooth jazz, K-pop, reggae, yodeling) come from? Why aren't the Bergens mentioned once? Why doesn't Branch have the "true colors" he got at the end of the last movie? Maybe I'm just nitpicking but this is still stuff that bothers me.

Another thing is how this just rehashes the already bad ending from the original as well as having a blatantly obvious tHe MuSiC wAs InSiDe YoU message. Onto the not so good characters. Anything remotely interesting about Branch has been removed leaving him the bland love interest. As for Poppy, she manages to be even MORE unlikeable than in the first film with her still having an obnoxiously happy personality while also being incredibly stupid with the decisions she makes! I know that's a part of her arc, but it still feels poorly handled. There's also Hickory who's just a plot device and for some reason has that stupid yodeling twist which added nothing. Oh yeah, they also gave a completely pointless subplot to the weird llama troll who's name I don't remember.

None of these problems are helped by the fact that this movie NEVER. STOPS. BEING. OBNOXIOUS! They cram in so many unfunny childish jokes in as many scenes as possible! Almost every single character I didn't already mention is used for cramming in these pointless jokes. As a part music critic, I have to acknowledge that the movie's choice of original music sucks as it sometimes just does awful covers or parodies of songs that are always put in movies like this, and the one actually original song is incredibly boring.

 Overall-It is slightly better than the first because it's at least trying to be more creative as well as having even better visuals and a good villain. That doesn't change that this is a mess with a jumbled story, pointless characters and plot points, and obnoxious humor. Still among the lowest quality from DreamWorks.

3/10