This film makes me want to kiss Justin Timberlake. The kids love it, I love it.I can even overlook James Corden, whose unbearable conceit shines through even in his 3 lines as a character in this movie. I can't stand him in anything, he is a pet hate - but even he can't ruin this one for me.Good fun, classic storytelling - the reviewers who don't get it probably don't have kids is my guess.If you are the type of person who will critique "realism" in a kids film called Trolls then yeh, should probably skip this one.

When the joyful Trolls are threatened with destruction (the monstrous Bergens eat them in order to gain momentary happiness), it is up to the relentlessly cheerful Princess Poppy and the morose Branch to come to the rescue.I'm sure you remember those ugly little toys with the massive sticky-up hair from your childhood: well, they take centre stage in this romp through a confrontation with their mythic ages-old foes, the Bergens. The source of the conflict is the simplest of things - happiness - and this plays a major part in the motivations of all the principal characters.Given that Trolls are - well, Trolls, there is inevitably a similarity of appearance among them, but the character designers have done a good job in making each character well differentiated so that they are easily recognisable. Similarly, the Bergens have strong individual hideousnesses (is "hideousnesses" even a word?). And the voice cast, headed by Anna Kendrick and Justin Timberlake, does sterling work, with the singing being as good as the acting.Given the trend for movies to look drab, dark, dull and desaturated, it was a pleasure to see a film which positively pulsates with prismatic polychromaticism. Some of the musical routines are the modern equivalent of the spectacular Busby Berkeley mass dance routines from Hollywood musicals of the 1940s, only bursting with colour. The story is primarily functional, but it carries a moderate amount of emotional payoff as the main characters all have decent character arcs. The resolution might be accused of being glib if this was not primarily a kids' film. Even so, there is a lot here for adults to enjoy.And I've always enjoyed Cyndi Lauper's True Colours (despite its overuse in UK TV advertising): the routine in which it is used here is exquisite and moving. It might have been written expressly for this movie.

As far as contemporary kid's films go, this film is what you should expect; it's relevant to young children with it's jokes, references and song choice and the visuals are somewhat pleasing. A young child will love this movie for sure but for an adult it can be a bit of a pain to sit through due the aforementioned features. Now, the reason I watched this film is because my younger sister turned it on at a relatives house whom we were visiting- I decided I may as well watch it too. Towards the beginning, I had no interest in the film of course, until a bit later on, I try to search for the message of the film. The ogres or whatever- the deplorable looking guys that eat the trolls- spontaneously start singing "Clint Eastwood" by Gorillaz. This is what really confused me because this is a song about smoking weed to get happy, and those creatures likewise,eat the trolls to be happy. So my guess is that the song choice was intentional, a belief backed up later by the film when the main protagonist says some tripe about 'not consuming things to be happy'. Is this film a 90 minute advert on not doing drugs? I guess my mind looks too far into stupid superficial things when I'm bored. If you're looking for a good family movie, just watch Kubo.

Trolls was not that great. Definitely not one of Dreamworks' better films. The troll characters were adorable, but a bit over the top. There wasn't any attempt of characterization with anyone except the two main trolls. The rest were just filler and background noise. Making their personalities super happy and hyper was fitting for the quirky dolls I grew up with in the 1990s, but the dialogue and story were so badly developed that the whole movie lacked the entertaining aspects it should have had. Not even the villains were interesting. I couldn't even tell you their names. The animation was done really well (no surprise as Dreamworks is great). Making the environments look like arts and crafts, with felt textures, glitter and sewing, was a neat way to build the world, even if it looked cartoonish at times. The scrapbooking was super cute. I loved that Poppy made elaborate cards for all occasions (or just because). It resulted in some funny situations. It did feel like Dreamworks tried to make up for the bad story by making the imagery really busy as a distraction, and that didn't help the situation.I was expecting original music, and was a bit disappointed to find out that the songs were mainly mash-ups of popular hits. With the exception of a few, not even very good hits. Justin Timberlake's voice was wasted in this. He only got one song, but it was one of the better ones in the movie.Overall, I probably wouldn't watch this movie again.