Trolls World Tour (2020)

(On Cable TV, December 2020) The cinematic Trolls universe gets a massive upgrade in Trolls World Tour as the storytelling becomes more self-assured and the universe is expanded so that the “Pop Trolls” of the first film are joined by five other tribes of musically-oriented creatures. Pushing the pacing to ludicrous levels and going for a jukebox musical rhythm that thinks that twenty seconds of each song is too long, this sequel is almost relentlessly colourful. The result is bright, fun, slightly overbearing, and yet very cheerful – exactly what’s needed in this glum 2020. The animation is superb, and the visual style of the film extends to accommodate six very different aesthetics as we discover one troll tribe after another. As if that wasn’t enough, the film even serves an inclusivity 201 seminar to the kids by slapping down its heroine as she talks about trolls “being all the same” to prefer a celebration of what each race of trolls brings to the diverse whole. Whew. While I wasn’t overly positive about the first instalment of the series, I’m considerably happier with Trolls World Tour: It’s bigger, better, more ambitious and doesn’t feature the ugly antagonists of the first film nearly as much. I may even be curious to see where else a third film may want to go.