A goofy albeit ingratiating bit about musical colonialism which may have you believing someone spiked your drink with acid.
Last night my eyes were besieged by a cascade of colour and a cacophony of sounds, different genres of music all fighting to wriggle down my ear canal like a sentient striped maggot called Mr. Dinkle’s, (I can’t decide whether the person responsible for coming up with these names should be promoted or shot) as my mind was opened to the possibility of love and unity spanning the land. Was I on drugs? Not this time. Trolls World Tour is what I blame this on.
Having watched the first Trolls movie with my girlfriend and rather enjoying it, largely through suspending my prejudice for animated films aimed right at the forehead of children ,way up in the stratosphere, we were eagerly awaiting the second film once the buses started to flaunt the flagrant colours of this film around town. But alas, watching this film on the big screen wasn’t meant to be on account of some small cells gone haywire bent to take the elderly and vulnerable down followed by places closing their doors. Months after its initial release during which time the existence of the film regressed far back into the recesses of my mind, we finally watched it last night.
Trolls World Tour is a nice little prosthetic limb attached to a film that’s lost no limbs in the first place. Because what’s better than having two arms? Having three. It almost serves as an extension of the last film, expanding on the lore and world of Troll Kingdom, rewriting it with the musician’s pen. The land is divided by distinct nations of musical trolls; classical, funk, country, techno, hard rock and the ear gratingly savage pop. Queen Barb, approval junkie ruler of the Hard Rock Trolls goes on an ethnic cleansing rampage the likes of which that hasn’t been seen since WWII, subjugating all the nations under the sound of Hard Rock and writing their music out of history. Meanwhile on the other side of the kingdom, Queen Poppy, critically deaf approval junkie ruler of the Pop Trolls goes on a journey of uniting everyone under peace and love and pop music being totally unaware that the ancient Pop Trolls are the reason why all this musical racism exists in the first place. Apart from the colonial undertones and the history of the Troll Kingdom being written by the victor, this film is nothing short of harmless dumb fun.
Take Queen Barb’s radical views on pop music, and then take my views on pop music and lay them atop each other and you’ll find no discrepancy whatsoever, so yes I’m what some of them out there call “elitist scum” but still, I must admit that the soundtrack didn’t seize me with the urge to pull my ears off despite the addition of K-Pop, Reggeaton and Yodelling into this bizarre brew of sounds, maybe I’m desensitised, who knows. But anyway, Queen Barb cannot be forgiven for what she did to the Classical Trolls, because anyone who can lay a scratch on anything that adorable must be a sociopath and should be institutionalised immediately.
The addition of Smooth Jazz troll whose sultry sounds send you on a psychedelic trip by the end of which you find yourself face down on a raft, hands tied and probably robbed of anything you had on you was a nice touch though.
Once the credits start rolling, I can confirm that you probably won’t beg for the last hour and a half of your life back, or maybe you will, I don’t know what sort of person you are, write to me and let me know…
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