Marvelous. A bouncy comedy mystery adventure parable in a fantasy world meticulously and cleverly conceived and gorgeously realized. I adore this movie.

I’m “biast” (con): nothing

(what is this about? see my critic’s minifesto)

One of the things I really loved about Madagascar was the unspoken metaphor about city living that underpinned it: that cities are civilizing. That cities are places that even out the differences between us and somehow allow us to coexist in relative harmony. I mean, look: Madagascar’s heroes were a lion and a zebra, predator and prey in the wild but best of friends within the cultivated confines of the urban jungle who wouldn’t even dream of cannibalism… until, pointedly and yet still only in passing, they are removed from the civilizing influence of city life.

And now someone has gone and made a story that is explicitly about that very notion, and again via animals. And Zootropolis (aka in some regions Zootopia) is marvelous, a bouncy comedy mystery adventure parable in a fantasy world that is meticulously and cleverly conceived and gorgeously realized via some of the loveliest and soaringest animation ever rendered. You will want to visit this place. (And I’m sure you’ll have the opportunity to do so: there is zero chance, certainly now that the movie is a huge hit globally, and deservedly so, that there will not be Zootopialands at Disney parks worldwide by 2020, just in time for the sequel. A sequel that you will welcome, not dread, because it means spending more time in this wonderful world.) It’s not often a movie even attempts to so casually and cheerfully jump across so many genres, and even less frequently that a movie succeeds as well as this one does. Directed and written (with a surprisingly long list of cowriters) by Byron Howard (Tangled, Bolt) and Rich Moore (Wreck-It Ralph), with an assist from codirector Jared Bush (making his directorial debut), Zootropolis achieves utter and delightful perfection without breaking a sweat, it’s that serenely confident in itself.

Though the running themes of inclusion and diversity and tolerance are powerful, they never take obvious paths. In the city of Zootropolis (or, depending on in which country you see this movie, Zootopia), all manner of mammals, predator and prey alike, live together in relative bustling harmony. Which isn’t to say that bigotry, scaremongering, and fear-based politics aren’t still things here. Judy Hopps (the voice of Ginnifer Goodwin: Something Borrowed, Take Me Home Tonight) is a novelty, and not taken very seriously, as a new rookie police recruit at the ZPD not because she’s female but because she’s a bunny, the first of her kind on the force. Nick Wilde (the voice of Jason Bateman: The Gift, Horrible Bosses 2), the streetwise con artist who becomes her accidental partner as she investigates her first big case, isn’t subject to unpleasant preconceptions and police profiling because of the color of his skin (or, er, fur), but because he’s a fox (and there’s a barbed indication that his career as a petty criminal has been shaped by stereotyped expectations, not the other way around). Unlike in Madagascar, there are no humans here — perhaps they disappeared in a similar way to the humans of Disney’s Cars world, whatever that was — but we are here nevertheless. The discrimination and crude assumptions that Judy and Nick face may be based on simplistic impressions of their species and not of their gender or race, but the implied connections are inescapable. And yet they may be, perhaps paradoxically for their remove, more readily absorbed, because they don’t seem like a personal criticism of us as humans, of our own particular biases and bigotries. We can laugh with recognition and sympathy when Judy is dismissed as a “dumb bunny” and Nick denigrated as a “sly fox.” And because we are not clouded by our own bigotries, it’s easier to see through the silliness and hurtfulness of such slurs.

(This shrewd navigation of our prejudices makes the fact that the film features a comparatively rare female protagonist in Judy even more thrilling than it might otherwise be, because her character comes across as more truly universal — someone that boys and girls, men and women can identify with — than is, enragingly, often the case with mainstream films, which tend to depict girls and women as female, a subset of human, not as human, full stop. Though how well the film works on this level also makes the fact that there are very few nonwhite actors among the voice cast — Idris Elba (Avengers: Age of Ultron, The Gunman) as the police chief and Judy’s boss is the most prominent — a frustrating problem, and a missed opportunity, because depictions of nonwhite people could use a similar swing toward universality.)

It’s really easy to get stuck talking about how well Zootropolis deals with diversity not as a problem but a solution — look how well the city accommodates people of a far wider variety of shapes and sizes than among humans! — but that really is just a welcome artifact of the zingy ingenuity of the story it’s telling, one about people with varying inclinations and interests trying to plot a course for their lives through a society that fancies itself free and open, and is in many ways, but one that still has a few blinders on. (More shades of our human world.) There’s a chase sequence through a section of town called Little Rodentia, where everything is scaled to its mouse denizens, that is uproariously funny merely as a bit of unexpected and unusual slapstick, as a “giant” rabbit cop is horrified to find herself blundering about like a Japanese movie monster, and extra amusing in how it showcases the ordinariness with which all these people accept one another in spite of some literally enormous differences. The movie is crammed with stuff like this, which will tickle little kids and provoke adults at the same time — and it all works effortlessly on its multiple levels at the same time. Even the throwaway pop-culture references, of which there are many, play on more than one level, from the goodnatured swipes at the Disney ethos to my most favorite nod: how the name of our put-upon bunny heroine evokes Judy Hoffs, the black woman cop from 21 Jump Street (the 1990s TV show, not the recent movie), who also faced lots of prejudice from her fellow officers… and whose smarts and competence never got in the way of her kindness or generosity, either.

I adore this movie… and that’s not something I say very often. Even as a devout lover of film, it’s very easy to get very cynical about the state of our entertainment when we are awash in cookie-cutter garbage. But a movie like Zootropolis can restore your faith in The Movies. If you need that, here you go.

Here’s Justin Timberlake promoting Trolls in Australia this weekend. Here’s my review of Trolls.

Reviving the soul-sucking demon-toys, Trolls is set inside an acid flashback at a rave you went to in 1997. It’s bright, it’s BRIGHT, it’s so bright your retinas will sting and you will be seeing color spots for hours after the movie. It’s the kind of flashy brightness that makes me suspect ulterior motives, like subliminal messaging—this whole thing might be an elaborate ad for Fruity Oaty Bars. But within the brightness is some amazing mixed-media animation, with some gorgeously rendered textures from the nubbly Troll skin to the cobwebs-and-cotton-candy Troll hair the felt and construction paper backgrounds. The approximately three hundred thousand animators and illustrators that worked on this movie deserve a round of applause.

The plot of Trolls is that you buy your kids Troll dolls for Christmas. Okay, seriously, the plot—and I use that term loosely—is that the Trolls live in a rainbow-and-glitter utopia that is really an exiled land because they fled the “Bergens”, which are, unfortunately, not a race of Candice Bergens, but Sendakian monsters who eat Trolls in order to feel happiness. Yeah, whoa is right—that’s a BIT dark. Trolls kinda slides into Last Unicorn territory here, but unlike that movie, which revels in the strange and the macabre, Trolls pastes a bright pink sticker-smile over its inner pain and darkness and keeps on singin’. This movie is the Lisa Frank sticker book covering our election pain.

Princess Poppy (Anna Kendrick) is the bright (BRIGHT) pink speed-freak leader of the Trolls whose relentless, incessant, torturous happiness attracts the Bergens who once again eat Trolls to feel happiness. Also, some Trolls fart and sh*t glitter and cupcakes, and I presume they also spit poisonous rainbow-acid that forces you to feel manic happiness and dance until your feet are worn down to bone at which point you collapse and they swarm you and devour your flesh. Nothing this forcibly happy could ever be anything less than unutterably evil.

In order to save her fellow Trolls, Princess Poppy teams up with Branch (Pipsqueak McMeMeMe), the lone surly Troll who is also grey-blue and doesn’t have the same weaponized happiness as Princess Poppy and the other Trolls. Justin Timberlake is a horrible voice actor who delivers every line like he’s reading a book to a child he doesn’t particularly like. The right casting here is someone like Patton Oswalt, who can affect both lonerish despair and reluctant affection for his fellow cheer-monsters. But Branch, as voiced by Pipsqueak Popinjay, sounds like the robot assistant built into your car—it sounds friendly, but it also doesn’t know what emotions are.

The music in Trolls is programmed by your local karaoke bar and sung like everyone’s getting paid REALLY WELL. Most of the songs are cover arrangements, but there’s also Pipper’s terrible “Happy” knock-off—the happiest Trolls will make adults is when Pip-Pop loses at the Oscars next year. (Lainey: PLEASE GOD JUST LET US HAVE THIS.) But the soundtrack is sure to delight kids who don’t see Moana.

On the Kids Movie Tolerability Index, Trolls is closer to Minions than The LEGO Movie—your kids will love it, you will only somewhat be able to tolerate it. (Zootopia it is not.) If you’re a black-hearted crank like me, you won’t be able to tolerate it all, but the sight of blissed-out four year olds ought to be enough to keep the worst of your impulse to drown yourself in your gallon-cup of Coke at bay. Also, the fact that Justin Timberlake is a TERRIBLE voice actor ought to bring some comfort on cold winter nights.

Trolls movie is more like a fairy tale product of someone who believes the world is all candies and sugar. It tries to force that very idea with three things namely hugs, singing and dancing.

Trolls movie gives you an impression as if a little girl has helmed its story. It doesn’t have any gravitas to it, lacks even an ounce of good humour and makes you shake your head at its dumbness on so many occasions. That being said, don’t forget Trolls is still good enough to show to your children. They are gonna love it. Primarily because it is for them.

When you look at the animation corner, Trolls just rolls. It has been beautifully animated. Gives plenty of focus to the world around, shows you a brilliant environment that gels up with the main characters. Precarious animals are created out of nothing, and yet they don’t look creepy. There are colors everywhere; sometimes they become too bright for your taste. Everything is kept cheerful and lively.

The movie tries to bank on something unusual in order to hold things apart from clichés. The first one being that it tries to give Trolls an image make-over. So they aren’t the bad guys really this time. They are in fact, super cute and cuddly. To make up for that we have contrasting creatures that are much more hideous called the Bergens.

Bergens aren’t exactly adversaries either. It is just by a mendacious concept that their eyes are clouded with, that they are trying to live by. A feigned concept of misplaced judgment that eating a Troll would make them happy. So the logic would be if you are sad, eating a happy person would make you happy. Something this video aptly depicts:

Now in order to justify that we have an antagonist Chef voiced by Christine Baranski in the movie, who is banished from the Bergen kingdom since trolls escape under her watch. In order to take revenge and earn her rightful place back, she is on the hunt for trolls.

Poppy voiced by Anna Kendrick is the main optimistic character in the Trolls movie. She isn’t watchful of her acts and just wishes to have a good time, irrespective of how loud their celebrations go. The surly Branch, voiced by Justin Timberlake, on the other hand is more of an opposite pole to Poppy’s character. He is always on the lookout for Bergens, plans beforehand, and is despondent and sarcastic most of the times.

Owing to their loud party habits, Chef discovers the secret hideout of the Trolls taking a couple of Trolls captive. Poppy then sets out on a singing, dancing and beaming sojourn to get her friends back accompanied by a fed-up Branch. Their quest to retrieve fellow Trolls back is what forms the crux of the movie.

The inclusion of King Gristle and Bridget‘s sub-plot keeps things light and interesting. There is a Cloud Guy who is voiced by Walt Dohrn who is pretty funny, but alas its role is like a cameo.

When you place great singers together, you can’t stop music from flowing sporadically. The flick features plenty of songs that come from the likes of Anna Kendrick, Justin Timberlake, Gwen Stefani, Zooey Deschanel, James Corden, Kunal Nayyar and Ariana Grande.

It features a lot of new songs, and some of them have been performed giving their notes a brilliant twist. Almost all of them get embellished by the beauty of the film’s CGI. They look better than most music videos too.

Yes, if you are a sane adult you might not like this movie. But this movie wasn’t made keeping that in mind. For kids, it would be a blast. Girls are going to just love it, since Poppy’s character has been built as a relatable center of attraction. It might rhyme with their wannabe lives.

You can definitely watch this movie with your junior.

You can check out the trailer of Trolls here:

Summary

Reviewer

scottshak

Review Date

2016-11-11

Reviewed Item

Trolls

Author Rating

Trolls