WTF: The new Trolls movie

What did I just watch?

For my sins I took the children to see Trolls World Tour. It’s the second Trolls film. I’m obsessed with the fact that the Trolls World Tour wiki page says: Trolls 2 redirects here. It is not to be confused with Troll 2.

I feel like I definitely saw the first Trolls film, though I can’t remember much about it other than thinking: “Wow, that was terrible”. I then spent the next 600 years or so hearing that fucking awful song.

Somehow, Trolls World Tour is worse than that song. It’s like your worst acid trip but more expensive because the kids won’t shut up unless they get popcorn even if you say “in my day we only got to go to the movies once a year and we had to take our own popcorn”.

But I digress, this is not about me, it’s about how bad this film is. Well, not just bad, not bad like The Bee Movie is bad (the bee is Seinfield and he wants to fuck a human woman - I’m not kidding). But bad as in, what just happened here?

I mean, here are just some of the things I observed watching Trolls World Tour:

• Poppy, the main character pink troll, AKA the Queen of the Pop trolls, shaves her legs within five minutes of the film starting.

• A troll gives birth to a smaller troll from the top of its head.

• The troll that is born out of the other troll’s head talks immediately and says he loves his “silver haired daddy”. He has a different accent to his father?

• While singing Girls Just Want To Have Fun the Justin Timberlake troll turns it into a song about how the Queen doesn’t want to bang him. The lyrics are changed to “because trolls just want to have fun”.

• They have a whole scene about the Justin Timberlake troll being “friend-zoned” because it’s never too early to teach young boys that if a girl just wants to be friends you should relentlessly pursue them until they change their minds.

• The tiny troll born from the bigger troll’s head says “hold me daddy”.

• They introduce a “one nation” subplot and literally use the term “one nation” then sing Crazy Train.

• James Corden is in it because of course he is. He carries around a worm and repeatedly puts his finger in the worm’s mouth.

• The worm’s name is Mr Dinkles and he is a sentient being.

• Poppy says “I love man stuff”.

• The country music trolls are also horses? And Poppy rides one of them?

• One of the trolls gets a fright which makes him shit a birthday cake, then shit candles, then shit fire that lights the candles. He then presents this to the trolls that scared him.

• Ozzy Osborne is an elderly senile troll in a wheelchair.

• One of the trolls is a “sexy” troll that plays saxophone and has red heart chest hair which puts Justin Timberlake troll and Poppy troll into a stupor and then they eat each other like sushi.

• Despite everything going on Justin Timberlake troll takes the time to tell Poppy that he won’t be friends with her because he loves her and then sings a song about toxic masculinity.

• The “smooth jazz” troll licks his saxophone.

• The tiny troll says “rock me daddy”.

The whole second half of the film involves the hip hop and funk trolls doing an extreme amount of emotional labour teaching Poppy about racism?

Poppy Troll pulls an “I don’t see racism” slash “all lives matter” and then a good 10 minutes is spent trying to explain to her why she is guilty of troll cultural appropriation in a thin allegory on how we can tackle racism. They make a point of explaining that because pop trolls wrote the history books that’s why the true history was pop troll-washed. Which is the only part of the film I liked TBH.

She does eventually understand this in time for a white saviour moment finale.

I looked up reviews when I got home but I guess after Cats this film isn’t weird enough to warrant anyone else saying “what on God’s green earth was that?” One review said: “This sweet sequel encourages inclusion and diversity -- both in terms of musical genre and cultural background -- while making audiences of all ages smile.”

My five-year-old said it was “amazing” and “the best movie I’ve seen in my life” which tells you five-year-olds are not discerning. I asked him if he learned anything from the film and he said “I wish I could poop a cake. Then I would always have cake”

Happy Sunday. Subscribe to help fund me watching more kids films clearly made by people on solid drugs.