Directed By Walt Dohrn and David P. Smith

Starring – Justin Timberlake, Anna Kendrick, James Corden

The Plot – Poppy (Kendrick) and Branch (Timberlake) discover that they are but one of six different Troll tribes scattered over six different lands devoted to six different kinds of music: Funk, Country, Techno, Classical, Pop and Rock. Their world is about to get a lot bigger and a whole lot louder. A member of hard-rock royalty, Queen Barb (Rachel Bloom), aided by her father King Thrash (Ozzy Osbourne), wants to destroy all other kinds of music to let rock reign supreme. With the fate of the world at stake, Poppy and Branch, along with their friends, set out to visit all the other lands to unify the Trolls in harmony against Barb, who’s looking to upstage them all.

Rated PG for some mild rude humor

POSITIVES

– Sugary animation. When the film isn’t blasting us in the face with an unlimited supply of cloudlike glitter, the vibrancy of color splashes through each frame with an abundance of consistency, that makes this almost a three-dimensional effort without any glasses necessary. In this regard, this is one aspect of the sequel that not only surpasses its original effort, but one that also clearly illustrates a fantastical element to the filmmaking that totally transports our experience into a world that is rarely this gorgeously expansive, even in animated offerings. The musical performance sequences beat with a level of radiance that mirrors the rhythmic pulse of the track deposited, giving the backdrops a meaningful influence on the complete spectrum of the sequence.

– Musical meaning. While the central narrative of the film flounders with such minimal development or even continued focus between songs, the underlying depiction of our own real world pop culture commentary is one that produces a satisfying layer of depth from the script that I certainly wasn’t expecting. There are many story beats that practically replicate what has taken shape in our own musical history, but some of my favorites from the film involved rock music’s hostile takeover, which limited other genre exposures, as well as pop music’s desire to always change the artist in ways that alienates even the most hardcore of the artist’s fans. These aspects of the script not only question the validity of a perfect protagonist, which leads to questions of self-discovery within them, but also pays homage to the histories that decorate each respective genre accordingly. It’s the link between two worlds that older audiences will appreciate, and allows this franchise the benefit of attacking something substantial beneath its candy-coated scenery.

– Veteran leadership. It’s unfortunate that the fresh faces that are added to this picture, like Bloom, or even Ozzy Osbourne as (What else?) the king of the rock-and-roll kingdom, leave such a minimally effective lasting impression on the complexion of the film, because of their minimal amount of screen time, but the dynamic duo of Kendrick and Timberlake are up to the task of carrying the entire show. Not only is the chemistry between them resonant of a long-time friendship that has persisted in the time between these two movies, but the aging of their respective characters have taken them in unique directions that neither have ever explored. For Kendrick’s Poppy, it’s the heft that comes with ruling a kingdom, which often sees the sugary sweetness of Anna’s vocal capacities strained for the forth-coming anxiety that develops from the impending invasion. For Timberlake’s Branch, it’s his developing feelings for Poppy, which casts a smothering blanket of urgency over his friendship with her. It makes for several delightful exchanges between them that cements their presence over this film, and makes them irreplaceable regardless of how many installments that this franchise spans.

– Positive messages. It’s a bit obvious, especially when watching the trailers that don’t obscure the film’s thematic intention, but the ideas of embracing diversity instead of wishing everyone to be the same, is one that is covered during literally every end of the film, and sends youthful audiences home with the kind of proper moral direction to make the world a better place. Especially in today’s social landscape, we could use a platform that hinges on acceptance, and pushes youths in a direction that makes the world a better place, even if its subtlety leaves a bit more to be desired in how the film materializes such feelings. What the movie lacks in originality, it more than makes up for in genuineness, and makes “World Tour” an earnest journey of reality that constantly has its heart in the right place.

– Presentational decisions. “World Tour” is the third animated Universal sequel to be produced with a 2.35:1 ratio for camera lens, and what this decision does is allow the audience an expansively immersive experience into all of the lustrous animated backdrops that I previously mentioned. Beyond feeling like the stakes were upped in the production quality of this sequel, the gimmick flourishes at absorbing as much about the color scheme as technologically possible, adding layers to illustrated definitions in backdrops, that gives them proximity that is so clearly presented that you can almost touch them. It makes me happy that more animated films are taking chances with their cinematic production qualities, and while this film needs a little more than technicalities to reach the finish line, it’s nothing if not a beautiful film to admire one hundred percent of the time.

NEGATIVES

– Insubstantial storytelling. While I credit the film immensely for its wide range of eclectic musical tracks and performances that maintained the excitement that only the Trolls can emit, the measure of its use to the film’s dependency creates two major problems in the conveying of its exposition. The first is that lyrics often change in songs to instead feed us information about the character or the conflict that our protagonists are experiencing. This not only feels distracting to the familiarity of the track, but can fly by too quickly for intepretation if the song itself is a faster tone track. The second problem is the abundance of the musical dependency itself, which pads the film greatly to even reach its desired run time. When you take out all of the musical numbers throughout this film, to which there are at least twenty, you realize how minimal the story of this film actually is. It sacrifices character arc’s and plot for a repetition of pop culture that honestly feels like a shameless cash grab to sell downloads, and makes so much of the meat of the film so tough to attach to, because it rarely ever slows down and remains focused.

– No personalities. Besides Branch and Poppy, who we’ve spent two entire movies with at this point, there isn’t a single distinguishing character trait in any of the supporting characters, new or old, that make them distinguishing in an ensemble that doubles with this installment. For the newbies, that’s more evident than anyone else, considering none of them are given backstories or exposition to flesh themselves out, and instead settling for musical stereotypes that don’t require any time of development to waste on. The rockers are obviously loud and obnoxious, the country trolls speak with a southern drawl, the funk trolls use urban slang, which is a tad uncomfortable at times, and the classical trolls are boring in everything they do. Even Bloom’s antagonist disappears from the camera for nearly thirty minutes between the second and third acts, and alludes to the feeling that if even one of these characters had proper time dedicated to their stories, it would make them so much more compelling than the one-note stereotypes that the film has no problem saddling them with.

– Flat humor. When the film isn’t settling for the low-hanging fruit of constant flatulence jokes and some other bottlely humor, it nearly forgets to sell its prime genre all together, with lukewarm material that often falls embarrassingly flat every time. With the exception of one very generous chuckle that I donated to a gag involving particular bounty hunters in the film, I remained emotionless for the entirety of the film. When I even approach this from a child level, I can’t imagine that they get much more enjoyment from it, because the jokes are often wordy and depend too often on interpretation to sell their punchlines. In addition to that, the film’s second half forgets comedy all together, and feels too much like a wet blanket to make this memorable to anyone five days after they see it.

– Lack of urgency. Yes, it’s a Trolls film, but when you think about the plot of the movie dealing with a Troll village holocaust, your mind starts to race with the dark territory that the film could attempt to tackle. Unfortunately, there’s such an overall absence of weight or consequences to the film that doesn’t capitalize on the gifts that they have been given, and leaves what should be feeling like Armageddon for these Trolls feel like a temporary inconvenience. Part of this falls on the lack of time dedicated to the antagonist that I previously mentioned, but the absence of fear from the Pop Trolls also lays a contributing factor, especially when the movie takes so long tackling the misconceptions about Barb that Poppy has. Never did I invest in this conflict, and the predictability of what ensued only solidified everything that I feared from a trailer that was translucent with its selling points.

– Subplot subdued. The love angle between Branch and Poppy was one that I slightly hung my hat on to produce some semblance of justification or entertaining value as to why I should be interested in a sequel to a movie that I didn’t like. But the weak pay-off that came from such a rushed execution was something that felt like nothing got resolved with this particular subplot, and only elaborated at the waste of time that this entire picture truly is. What’s worse is the film brings it up through Branch jealousy or a supporting character recognizing his feelings, each time Branch is on-screen. It makes you think that something special is developing between them, when in reality the blandness of this script limits the appeal of anything contained, but none of which as obvious as the love between two characters who you’ve grown four years with, at this point.

My Grade: 5/10 or D+