The first trailer for the new Trolls movie has hit, and it has everything you'd expect from a film that stars Anna Kendrick and Justin Timberlake. But it has a few surprises, too. While the film will certainly be full of insanely catchy pop tunes, it's also got a story that looks to be just as much fun. Check out the trailer below.
While Justin Timberlake is responsible for the theme song that you won't be able to get out of your head for the rest of the day, his character in Trolls doesn't appear to be the singing type. Branch doesn't appear to be much fun at all. He looks to be unique in this, as every other troll in the trailer seems to be just as obliviously happy as Anna Kendrick's Poppy. The two will team up to try and rescue the rest of their village from a Bergen, who looks to be the Gargamel to the Trolls' Smurfs. It may not be the most original story in the world, but if it's done well, who cares?
Computer animated movies are, almost always, exercises in being bright and colorful, yet Trolls really looks to be taking things to the next level. It looks like something out of Dr. Seuss story, only more interesting than The Lorax. 2016 has been a solid year for family films and Trolls looks like it may continue this trend.
While Dreamworks Animation has had reasonable success recently with movies like How to Train Your Dragon and the Kung Fu Panda series, they have yet to recapture the studio's early glory that came with the Shrek films. Those were so popular that even a decade later they still held several box office records for computer animated films, although recently, Finding Dory broke a couple of them. The studio was recently sold to NBC Universal after years of significant money issues.
Trolls at least has the potential to be the major hit that the studio needs. It has an impressive voice cast that may be enough to draw viewers on its own. Some of the dialogue ("solid burn") seems to indicate the film will have a modern flavor to it to go with its fantasy setting. As this was much the same formula that Shrek used to success, perhaps Trolls can use it as well and get the same result.
What do you think of Trolls? Is this the next big computer animated hit that will give Pixar a run for their money? Let us know in the comments.
