LIKES:
The World Expansion:
-Trolls is colorful, creative, and looks like a craft game that matches Poppy's scrap book at times.
-The third installment brings fantastic evolution of that world, and I quite enjoyed watching the magic unfold as new worlds were explored.
-An island filled with puppet like people, a new town of what looks like alien generation that is a new twist to the mix. They are all bound together by music of course, but once more they have style to each place.
-And to have these new worlds come out and not just be about the Trolls, it's a nice little addition that offered more environments for the music to flow out.
Voice Acting:
-The cast is fine at accomplishing the task of bringing our Trolls' personality to the life with their personalities and spirits that make the Trolls so engaging and fun.
-Timberlake's emotional scale gets a bit more plausible and expanded in this movie, but still holds that deep, internal hurt, brought about by logic and can still sing a tune.
-Deschanel's involvement is fun, quirky, and like the first one, very great for delivering the jokes to which her character is loaded with. That wispy lisp works for innocent hiding of her jokes, and the sassiness of being passive-aggressive, quite honestly like New Girl.
-Kendrick is the winner for me. She annoying and quirky, but she really works to accomplish the Poppy personality of positivity, peppiness, and at times hurt that I'm used to hearing. Plus, she can sing very well and harmonize so well with the other voices.
-Special shout out to Kenan Thompson for making a wonderful joke relief delivery as Tiny Diamond. Cocky and annoying? Sure, but it works int his movie to cut through the other banters and often so stalwart that I just laughed a lot.
-The chemistry between the actors is edited and naturally well, and I quite enjoyed how well they played off each other's energy and flow. An excellent achievement!
The Animation:
-It's smooth. It's fun. It just really flows with the antics all being fantasy and coordinated to accomplish a lot of that energetic fun.
-The hair flows with their stylish, cartoony waves, and blowing in the wind. Trolls run cutely, and make me laugh as they try to charge into the fray. And even the odder moments hold a style that all is just a major testament to the powerful of CGI animation.
-And of course the dancing numbers are the ones that hold the most splendor for this reviewer. They have fantastic choreography, amazing moves that mix in, and with villains songs... awesome interactions with the environment that feel like an 80s music video.
-DreamWorks knows what they do with making things move and it was beautiful.
The Comedy:
-It's funny and cute at the same time, with the same Trolls magic that you love with the series.
-I've mentioned before, but Bridget is a hoot for the adult comedy. Simple lines that adults pick up, while the kids will just laugh as she acts silly with her lovable Gristle.
-When that interlude is not going on, Branch and Poppy are silly, their personalities resonating with me, and the banter annoying, but again loaded with jokes that many ages can enjoy.
-Comedic timing with Tiny Diamond's word had me laughing the hardest, but the new characters have plenty of moments that again have many levels and are just fun for parents to enjoy, all while the kids laugh their heads off.
The Music:
-It's some of the best songs for me in terms of the theater spectacle, that 90s/2000s soundtrack list a perfect target for audience members like me.
-While other songs had more heart and soul, and there was better selection in the previous installments, this movie is all about the splendor and pizazz.
-The numbers are awesome, very light heavy, and what a fantastic spread of pop energy that feels at times like a concern number. And these numbers really make the movie just easy to get lost into.
-I found that most of the targeted audience will want to hit theaters to see this one for enjoying it the most as the theaters explode with the bass dropping and synthesizer goodness.
Just Fun
-It's easy to say that I had fun with this film, and all these e likes come together to illustrate that.
-Trolls 3 isn't trying to reinvent the wheel, it's just having fun and getting lost in the music, good vibes, and just charm this installment is bringing. I think this is the best part about this movie, though there are still limitations.
DISLIKES:
Annoying:
-We can admit, the Trolls have annoying tendencies and sometimes this movie amplifies that.
-Some banter gets way out of hand, prolonged too far and loaded with forced lines that are a bit cringe worthy after about thirty minutes.
-Other times, some of the comedy is a stretch and the story tries to take quirks and make them a tad more hyperbolic than they probably needed to.
-And of course, much of the comedy designed for kids often involves repeating the lines a bazillion times, but hey... you know that going into the theater.
The Music Isn't As Storytelling/Diverse
-There are a few songs that help break out of my genre, but they are few and far between and not nearly as executed well for the sake of the story.
-The music feels more like a CD design than the true plot, and while it does not take away from the fun, it does take away from ingenuity some of the other songs had.
-So in terms of ingenuity, or really having the most amazing original songs... you aren't finding it in this movie.
The Story Is Weaker:
-The movie has those moments that hit hard and really drive home that character growth that really hit me hard and made me smile.
-But... the story as a whole is crammed, packed with so much, and not having the time to marinate or develop into the amazing tune.
-Banding together might be silly fun, but the story, the impasse, and the obstacles are for the most part lame outside of the main antagonists. Meaning that the storytelling is just missing some connections that the first one did so well.
-True, it is still fun, but to not have the fully fleshed out tale.. well... that is something a tad disappointing when they had done it better before.
Most of your Classic Characters... gone
-The movie is loaded again with a LOT of new characters, and most of them get adequate time on screen.
-Most of your favorite trolls from the previous films though are gone. Practically making little appearances on screen to make way for the new toy models to come.
-Is it the worst dislike? For me, no, but for others... you might want to just prepare you or your little ones for some glum of not seeing them.
Too much in One Movie?
-It might be fun, but the movie doesn't have the best storytelling avenues due to the fact that there is so much that they are trying to do.
-The side story with the Bergels is razor thin, and seems heavily edited to fit the run time they wanted, only coming together near the end.
-The antagonists have some bite, but outside of really poking at the modern stereotypes, they don't accomplish much in terms of having that connection and interesting qualities like Barb did.
-Even the world exploring seems minimized, and the fact that we don't have more time to really dive, develop, and coordinate growth was further limited by this fast pace of entertainment.
-So much with such a fast pace means that the movie just has this incomplete feeling, only lost in the moment to the fun factors and silly stuff that makes this ignorable.
-Yet, had there been some more planning and maybe a little less character introduction, we would have accomplished this task.
The VERDICT:
I had a lot of fun at Trolls Band Together. It's a spectacle that is more due to the glamor, the songs, and the fun, than the actual story which means a great outing with friends and family. All the things that made it fun, well most of them, are here to just distract and have fun, without getting lost in all the agenda based writing that we have had for a bit. All of this is so fun, and getting lost in the jokes and the soundtrack is top game in terms of this style of movie that I feel will really make adults and kids laugh as they watch it. However, my fellow reviewers are right in that this movie is still lacking something that made the other two movies have that kick and heart that made their magic so loveable to begin with. Is it the character usage suffering? The music's execution feeling truncated and scratched? Too much humor? Or the story misses? It's really all of these things, too much stuck into one movie that made this not as complete or fleshed out like I wanted or expected. It needs a little more planning, a little more of that impasse, and a little more of that clever execution to assist with taking the beat to an 11 like the previous installments were. Still, for most, this movie is going to be fun and enough glamor that you'll get by and again deserves a trip to the theater to really embrace the best parts of this movie. My scores for the film are:
Animation/Adventure/Comedy: 7.5
Movie Overall: 6.0.
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