A movie squarely aimed at the littlest of kids that is actually pretty entertaining for grown-ups too, Trolls World Tour is the brightly coloured, good natured follow up to 2016’s animated Trolls.
Anna Kendrick returns to voice optimistic troll Poppy, now queen of her musical land, while Justin Timberlake is the voice of her best friend, the grumpy Branch, who secretly harbours a crush on her. Their friendship is put to the test when they discover that their pop music-loving tribe isn’t the only group of trolls out there – in fact, there are lands filled with trolls devoted to funk, country music, techno and classical – and all their homes are threatened by Barb, the queen of the rock music trolls (Bloom), who wants rock to rule them all.
Cynics may feel like they’ve been bashed over the head with a rainbow-strewn, glitter and hug-filled baseball bat for 90 minutes, but everyone else from very young children to grown-ups can’t help but be charmed by the cute trolls (who give birth to baby trolls via their fluffy hair, but we won’t think about that too much), the vivid, feelgood animation and the sweet, easy to follow, song-packed storyline.
There’s even a heartfelt moral about embracing differences rather than trying to be the same as everyone else that is nicely done without becoming cloying, and fun voice work from a cast that includes Kelly Clarkson, Ozzy Osborne, Mary J Blige and George Clinton.
As you’d expect, the real joy of the movie is the music, which flows from the very first scene and touches on not just the six main troll tribes of country, pop, rock, classical, funk and techno but others including jazz, K-pop and yodelling, giving kids a whistlestop tour of different music styles.
Like the trolls themselves, this is fun, bright and breezy. And that’s never a bad thing.
Click HERE for Trolls World Tour activity sheets for the kids!
Is Trolls World Tour suitable for kids? Here are our parents’ notes...
This film is suitable for all ages and there are no scary moments. Even the ‘bad’ character (Barb) isn’t scary so should be fine for all viewers.
One note to parents of very young children – more than one character places gumdrops/sweets in their ears during the movie so may be worth telling little ones that isn’t a good idea!
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