My kids, who are aged three and four, love everything Trolls (well, except the actual troll dolls that I had growing up since they find them weird and creepy). So when we heard that there was going to be a Trolls 2 movie, aptly titled, Trolls World Tour given the plot line, you know my kids were over the moon. And when I heard that it would be releasing digitally rather than hitting theaters, I was over the moon since it meant that I wouldn’t have to endure taking my kids to the bathroom or hearing them complain about wanting more popcorn.
So, now that it’s released, what did my kids actually think of Trolls World Tour? Well, they loved it, of course! For the most part anyway. Like with Sonic the Hedgehog, which I also took my kids to see, there were some key aspects of this movie that they weren’t so keen on. So here are the aspects that my children loved about Trolls World Tour, and also what they hated. Oh, and spoilers up ahead if you haven’t seen the movie yet.
Loved: All The Rock Songs
Now, look. I’ve played “Crazy Train” in my house before. I’ve played “Barracuda”. But when I played them, my kids just tuned them right out. Told me to play something else. But when some Rock troll named Barb starts belting out those classic songs, you better believe my kids were jumping off the couch and headbanging like they were Beavis and Butt-head.
To be fair, the songs definitely work better in context than in a vacuum, so I understand why my kids were much more receptive to them when they heard Barb singing them in the movie rather than hearing Ozzy Osbourne or Heart singing them on the radio. But my one big takeaway is this: My kids now like rock music. So if there’s one big plus to Trolls World Tour, it’s that it’s now opened their ears to a genre that I hold near and dear to my heart. So that’s pretty awesome.
Hated: The Rock Zombies
While my kids loved the rock music in this movie, my kids (namely, my three-year-old son) hated the rock zombies! Toward the end of the film, Barb pulls a Thanos and actually wins by getting all six Infinity stones, er, I mean all six Troll strings, which grants her the ability to turn every troll into a fan of rock music. And when this happens, the trolls who like other genres of music get zapped and turn into gray-hued, red-eyed rock zombies. And this, my son did not like.
And by did not like, I mean it scared the ever-loving crap out of him. We watched the movie three (yes, three) times this past weekend, and each time, my son ran to the door and hid behind the wall, poking his head out every so often, only to hide it again. I later asked him what scared him so much about the rock zombie trolls, and he said it was their eyes. So, rock music? Good. Red eyes? Not so good. Check. Good to know.
Loved: The K-Pop Trolls
My kids had never even heard of K-Pop before this movie, and now that they have, I’m sure it’s going to drive me up the wall. In the movie, Queen Barb sends out bounty hunters to capture Queen Poppy and Branch, and one such group of bounty hunters is a quintet of K-Pop Trolls.
At first, I thought it was cute. But when my children both said, “Can you play that part again?” And again. And again! I knew that I would have a problem on my hands. And sure enough, along with Ozzy and Heart, I was also playing BTS and Blackpink this weekend. Because look, it’s only fair.
Hated: The all-over-the-place narrative
As I said up top, my children watched this movie three times. And by the third time, they were actually able to follow it. But that first watch-through, hoo-boy, my kids had no idea what was going on. And I don’t blame them. The first movie is kind of scatter-brained, but this second one jumps from one music number to the next without any real rhyme or reason.
Now, nestled in this story is a pretty good message about why diversity is important, and how it’s valuable to respect other people’s culture and beneficial to accept everybody for who they are. But again, that’s nestled deep in the plot. Everything around it is kind of a mess (a fun and flashy mess, but a mess all the same), and it was only by the third time that my kids really seemed to get everything the movie was trying to say, and that's when they truly enjoyed it.
Loved: Tiny Diamond
Remember when I said this movie was kind of a mess? Well, I think that’s best exemplified by a new character named Tiny Diamond (voiced by Keenan Thompson), who is actually birthed by a glittery male troll named Guy Diamond (voiced by Kunal Nayyar). How is this new troll birthed by a male troll? From an egg, of course, which really changes everything I thought I knew about trolls and raises a lot of questions for me. Like, can Branch also give birth? Are trolls asexual? And, most importantly, am I really spending time out of my day thinking about the reproductive cycles of trolls?!
But you know what, my kids LOVE Tiny Diamond. They love the way he sounds, the way he looks, and the way he raps. They love pretty much everything about him. If anything, the one thing they didn’t love was that he wasn’t in the movie nearly enough to their liking. They’re hoping he has a lot more screen time in the inevitable sequel. Tiny Diamond is his name!
Hated: The lack of the Bergens
And lastly, the one thing my kids really didn’t like about this movie was that the Bergens were nowhere to be found besides a slightly inappropriate mid-credit scene. Upon their first viewing, I think my kids were just trying to keep up with the story so they really didn’t notice. But upon the second and especially the third viewing, my daughter wished that King Gristle and Bridget could have been in the movie.
And I agree. If not for that mid-credit scene with King Gristle shouting, “Balls!” I probably wouldn’t have even noticed that they were missing in the movie. But because of that mid-credit scene, they were sorely missed. I love the Bergens!
And that’s pretty much it. There were some other aspects that my kids were on the fence about (Like the Country trolls, which both my kids were kind of bored by), but these six were the main aspects that they explicitly said they either really liked or really disliked. But what were your kids’ feelings about the movie? Sound off in the comments.
