Film Review: "Trolls" (2016).

"Find your happy place". This is at the heart of Trolls. This computer-animated musical comedy film, directed by Mike Mitchell and Walt Dohrn, written by Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger, based on a story by Erica Rivinoja and based on the dolls of the same name created by Thomas Dam. The film revolves around two trolls, Poppy, the happiest Troll ever born, and the curmudgeonly Branch, as they set off on a quest to rescue her friends after the Bergens invade Troll Village.

Trolls, more or less its original form, originated from Gjøl in Denmark. In 1958, the famous troll doll toy was created by Thomas Dam. The first iterations were filled with wood shavings and many styles followed since. Plans for a film based on the toyline to be produced by DreamWorks were announced as early as 2010. This version was to be written by Adam Wilson and his wife Melanie. By 2012, Chloë Grace Moretz and Jason Schwartzman were reported to have been cast in the lead roles. In the same year, 20th Century Fox and DreamWorks Animation announced that the film with the working title Trolls would be released in June 2015, with Anand Tucker set to direct the film, and Wallace Wolodarsky and Maya Forbes to pen the script. By April 2013, DreamWorks Animation had acquired the intellectual property for the Trolls franchise from the Dam Family and Dam Things, thus turning DreamWorks Animation into the exclusive worldwide licensor of the merchandise rights, except for Scandinavia. In May 2013, the film was pushed back for a year to November 2016. The same month, DreamWorks Animation announced that Mike Mitchell and Erica Rivinoja had replaced Tucker, Wolodarksy and Forbes as director and writer, and were hired to reimagine the film as a musical comedy. This would make the film DreamWorks Animation's first musical film since The Prince of Egypt (1998). By January 2016, Anna Kendrick, Justin Timberlake and the rest of the cast had all confirmed their casting and had announced their respective roles via announcements on Twitter.

The film features the voices of Anna Kendrick, Justin Timberlake, Zooey Deschanel, Russell Brand, James Corden, and Gwen Stefani. The cast gave enjoyable performances, even though their characters are nothing more than archetypal, which unfortunately is expected in animated films. Kendrick, Timberlake and Deschanel gave unique covers of The Sound of Silence, True Colours and Hello, even though they didn't live up to the originals. 

Like most modern animated movies, Trolls is lovely to look at; unfortunately, there isn't much going on beneath the surface. Factors such as cliched storyline, combined with painfully small doses of laughs and a rather weak plethora of cover versions to great songs, makes the film perhaps not one of DreamWorks' best animated features. The film is merely a distended cartoon meant to plug a fashionable line of children's dolls. However, unlike modern Disney films, there is something in this film that will move both young and old audiences, and, at times, does manage to enchant you with its oddball charm.

Simon says Trolls receives: