Review: Trolls Band Together (2024)

Trolls Band Together

Rating

Director

Walt Dohrn

Screenplay

Elizabeth Tippet, Kim Caramele, Lloyd Taylor

Length

1h 31m

Starring

Anna Kendrick, Justin Timberlake, Kenan Thompson, Walt Dohrn, Anderson .Paak, Ron Funches, Kunal Nayyar, David Fynn, Kevin Michael Richardson, Eric Andre, Daveed Diggs, Kid Cudi, Troye Sivan, Camila Cabello, Zosia Mamet, Amy Schumer, Andrew Rannells, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Zooey Deschanel, Aino Jawo, Caroline Hjelt, RUPaul Charles, Dillon Francis, GloZell Green, Patti Harrison, Lance Bass, JC Chasez, Joey Fatone, Chris Kirkpatrick

MPAA Rating

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Review

Family is a recurring theme in the Trolls series of animated films and Trolls Band Together gives you a double dose of such adventures.

In Trolls Band Together, we’re taken into Branch’s (Justin Timberlake) youth as a member of a boy band along with their breakup. The constant references to different boy bands wears out its welcome fast but the interaction between siblings feels richly textured and believable. Floyd (Troye Sivan), one of the members of BroZone, is kidnapped by a pair of entitled rich kids, Velvet and Veneer (Amy Schumer, Andrew Rannells), who want to be famous without the hard work. His other brothers (Eric André, Daveed Diggs, and Kid Cudi) must band together (the puns don’t stop with this movie) to save Floyd and foil Velvet and Veneer’s plans.

Meanwhile, Branch is so disgusted with his brothers he sets off on his own with Poppy (Anne Kendrick) who come across a sequestered group of Trolls who believe the Bergen threat, resolved in the first film, is still an issue. There Poppy finds her long lost sister (Camila Cabello). If that isn’t enough, throw in a subplot with Bergens Bridget (Zooey Deschanel) and King Gristle (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) on their Honeymoon and you have a film overflowing with narratives that are easy enough for kids to follow and give them plenty to pay attention to.

Walt Dohrn returns to the director’s chair with an effort that is simple but entertaining. The story is familiar and the characterizations can get a bit tedious at times but it’s certainly an enjoyable effort. The musical cues this time out are less than impressive, though the techno “Sweet Dreams” riff is a solid effort and the new song from N*SYNC, “Better Place” is decent, but none of the songs are nearly as well utilized as they were in the first film.

For kids, the bright, pop-centric, beat-heavy feature will be a wonderful diversion. They might not understand all that’s going on and they certainly won’t get any of the in-jokes. Even their parents might struggle since the era of boy bands that dominated the 1980s and 1990s were before many of the current generation of parents with young children were alive. Sure, there were bands like One Direction, but this film is a neon-colored panoply of thirty-year-old splendor.

That doesn’t mean Trolls Band Together can’t still be appealing, but its dated references, even if not its newer soundtrack, needs to find a way to a more modern standing. Then again, perhaps the only people still interested are 80s/90s kids who take their grandkids to the theater. Whatever works.