Trolls — cute but why

I’ve been doing a ton of international travel lately which means (among other things) that I’ve been catching up on my list of airplane movies! If you’ve never heard the term before, I like to think of an airplane movie as one that I don’t even want to invest couch time in but since I’m a prisoner in a flying metal tube, watching them is better than literally nothing.

As such, I watched Trolls. Overall, I found it to be the perfect kids movie, it included a great message about being yourself, bright colors, catchy music, lots of characters that can easily be turned into toys, etc. But one thing I found missing was a reason for anyone older than 10 to watch.

I credit the subtleties in kids movies that also make them adult movies trend to Pixar. Watching Toy Story as an adult is just as entertaining as it was when I watched it as a kid, even though it hits me in different feels. It’s a great trick to make parents / caretakers actually enjoy watching movies with the children in their care. Trolls had none of that.

Was it enjoyable? Sure. Did I find myself bopping along to JT and Anna Kendrick’s tunes? Duh. Did I fall asleep during some of the ending? 100%.

UPDATE: Apparently DreamWorks has decided to greenlight Trolls 2 for release in 2020.

Again, I’m lukewarm on this news but I do hope that the deal involves more original music from JT because that was seriously the best part of this movie.