So far, 2020 had been quiet feature animation-wise, before the uncertain times we have been plunged into. In a climate where a new animated feature seems to open every month, this seems rather unusual. January was without a feature, only showings of films released the previous month, like Disney Animation’s Frozen II and Blue Sky’s Spies in Disguise. Not counting the largely live-action hybrid Sonic The Hedgehog, the feature animation calendar year began right before COVID-19 hit the United States… With Pixar’s Onward, that studio’s first ever release that wasn’t put out around summertime or during the Thanksgiving frame. This month, DreamWorks unleashed Trolls World Tour, the sequel to their 2016 toy-based success. Like Onward, Trolls World Tour did some new things itself, in terms of its release strategy.
You may have already read the reports, Trolls World Tour was supposed to bow theatrically right around this time. Two trailers were made, the marketing campaign was in full swing, DreamWorks was ready to go with their first animated feature of the new decade… But then COVID-19 spread across America, and thus DreamWorks and their distributor Universal Pictures opted to release the film straight to VOD, rather than delaying it to much later in the year and restarting the marketing campaign, spending even more on additional prints and advertising. By contrast, their flagship studio Illumination pushed a still-unfinished Minions: The Rise of Gru from this coming summer to next summer. A full year. This of course pushed their previous summer 2021 release – Sing 2 – to December of that year.
While released in some theaters overseas, Trolls World Tour debuted exclusively at home in the United States and most of the world. While it is very much a theatrical animated feature in size and scope (it cost $90 million to make, a shocking number for a mainline DreamWorks feature), it is pretty much a direct-to-video sequel at this point due to circumstances far out of the studio or industry’s control. The strategy has had pundits debating on whether this will be a one-time thing, or possibly the future. Universal reported record-breaking rentals after the film debuted, though they are quite mum on the total gross at the moment. The opening day take alone was supposedly bigger than that of the previous record-holder: Avengers: Endgame. If Pixar’s latest broke one of the studio’s own traditions, DreamWorks’ latest broke industry-wide traditions.
Similarly, I feel both movies ignore some modern animated movie “requirements”, the arbitrary rules often slapped onto animated films that never get brought up in the land of live-action movies.
While Onward was largely met with generally positive reviews, that typical “it’s not Pixar-level good” streak did flow through the air like a faint, unpleasant smell. The very greeting that many other Pixar films that aren’t directed by the “holy” quad – Pete Docter, Andrew Stanton, Brad Bird, and Lee Unkrich – normally get. (My breakdown of that, here.) Onward, which was director Dan Scanlon’s picture through and through, wasn’t interested in trying to replicate the dizzying highs of Up and Inside Out, the epics of Finding Nemo and WALL-E, the dance with the dark in Toy Story 3 and Coco, and the adult-skewing edge of The Incredibles and Ratatouille. As such, some knocked it for that. I, on the other hand, took the film for what it was: Scanlon’s personal story of his father whom he never knew, spun out as a Dungeons & Dragons-like suburban fantasy world quest. Maybe it wasn’t the most groundbreaking or original animated movie on the lot, but did it have to be? Does every Pixar film have to be just that? Is it humanely possible for a studio to churn out “groundbreaking masterpiece” after “groundbreaking masterpiece”? Or better yet, why does each individual director at Pixar get tasked by some observers to make this one specific kind of movie?
Onward eschews these silly rules, and it’s refreshing because of that. You heard me right. Just because it isn’t WALL-E or Up or Coco or The Incredibles doesn’t mean that it’s a regressive film that pushes animation backwards to the mid-1980s faster than a speeding bullet train. Pixar is not one person, and their individual directors shouldn’t be judged like that. Scanlon has only made three feature films in his lifetime, one is a wholly independent live-action film (2009’s Tracy), another is a prequel to a Pixar classic, and then there’s this new original story of his. Scanlon’s movie, much like every other Pixar film, is aimed at a wide audience. If it didn’t have the elements of those other Pixar movies that you personally prefer, that doesn’t make it an inferior kiddie flick. What is it with some folks needing Pixar’s animated films to be a certain way? Is it because, deep down, they still see animation as kids’ stuff? And that anything that isn’t 10 particular Pixar “masterpieces” or Disney Renaissance favorites like Beauty and the Beast (you know, the first GREAT animated movie ever made?) is not worthy of their time? Why can’t an animated movie just be what it wants to be? Or what it is?
Are these the same people who look down on anything Disney made before the Renaissance? Are these the same people who would ask “Where’s the story? Where are the well-defined characters?” when shown a more outre film that’s not concerned with typical Hollywood animation conventions? In my recent years, I’ve found a lot to like in a lot of older animated movies that were distinctive for their visuals, but not quite beloved for their stories. I’ve heard it time and time again with these kinds of films, “The animation is great and weird and different, but the story was poor.” Maybe, just maybe… There are different kinds of storytelling? And that Disney and Pixar aren’t the only way? I mean, Sony Animation’s Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse more than showed us another way to tell an animated story. So did some DreamWorks movies, some Blue Sky movies, the list goes on.
If I had any problems with Onward, they would be because of the execution or the writing, not necessarily the story they chose to tell. I can’t knock Onward for what it is not, I could only knock it for failing to be what it is setting out to be. For what it is, I felt Onward was a pretty solid flick. Ian and Barley are likable leads (both played well by an earnest Tom Holland and a boisterous Chris Pratt, respectively), their quest is full of fun surprises and neat detours, and the eldest brother Barley’s arc has an emotional punch to it that makes for a serious wallop of an ending. I also particularly dug how Barley’s love for his D&D-like quest game factored into the trip, and how it was routed in the film’s setting’s history. I like stories with themes of preservation, and Onward‘s got hints of that. Onward doesn’t quite go ham on the worldbuilding of its modernized fantasy realm, but it shows you just enough to give you a general idea of how that whole world works. I can understand wanting to see more of that, though. None of the dialogue feels like it was self-consciously trying to keep the young’uns interested (Pixar is usually very good at this, I think, they don’t assume anything of the children who may be in the audience), it flowed nicely and produced some funny lines here and there. The supporting characters are a lot of fun too, from Octavia Spencer’s standout Corey the Manticore to the Mel Rodriguez-voiced centaur police officer Colt Bronco. Dan Scanlon directs most of the material with tact and some neat cinematography from Sharon Calahan and Adam Habib, while editor Catherine Apple initially has trouble pacing a fairly frenetic first half hour. The animators, as usual, boost the vocal performances and the rest of the crew made the film look very nice. Some of its lighting and color grading choices can be quite inspired, and Mychael and Jeff Danna’s score ranges from epic medieval-era fantasy to dreamy atmospheres to the ’80s hair metal pulse of Barley’s world.
Trolls World Tour is more or less the silly, musical fun of the first Trolls, which did score some pretty decent reviews back in the day. Like many a non-Pixar animated feature, Trolls sometimes is relegated to the kiddie corner for not being like those esteemed Pixar films, or even acclaimed DreamWorks films like How To Train Your Dragon. Trolls perhaps didn’t need to aim for such a high echelon, being based on a toyline with no established characters, storylines, or any lore. From the outside, Trolls looks like a modern equivalent of those ’80s toy commercial animated movies, like My Little Pony: The Movie (1986, of course, not the 2017 film), GoBots: Battle of the Rock Lords, Rainbow Brite and the Star Stealer, etc. But I felt DreamWorks’ film tried to be a little more than just an 80-minute slice of advertising. It had fun characters, some genuinely funny lines, solid musical sequences, some unexpected emotional bits, and pretty inspired art direction. Both Trolls and its sequel look like someone was given millions of dollars worth of felt and other various arts & crafts, and just made a whole world out of it all. Again, the troll dolls are the troll dolls, there’s nothing else to them other than their iconic hairdos and wide saucer eyes. So what did the filmmakers do? They came up with some neat stuff and made a fun little movie out of it all, that both kiddies and us “grown ups” can enjoy. I think that’s more than enough. Why does every animated movie have to be some god-tier Citizen Kane-level masterpiece? Why not measure every single live-action movie like that, then.
Trolls World Tour, I felt, leaned a lot harder on the first film’s more goofy and psychedelic aspects, and made for a much more entertaining sequel and an overall pretty decent film! The first film’s co-director Walt Dohrn handles directing duties this time, and he and his crew just seemed to have an absolute blast here. The premise is like Avengers: Infinity War, but with poprocks and Coca-Cola energy. The humor is downright bizarre in sections, particularly a sequence where a Kenny G-inspired smooth jazz troll puts Poppy and Branch in a trance, immersing them into a totally ’90s new age glitter and tiger photo paradise. (Uncle Grandpa vibes.) Different animation techniques are used for these kinds of sequences, and for minor little details as well. A talking flute in the scene where Poppy and Branch visit the tarnished land of classical music moves like a jerky Rankin/Bass creation. In a desert, the glitter sand has a similar frame rate of movement. The bubble that abducts trolls into the funk music mothership (cleverly based on Parliament’s Mothership Connection and their trademark space-funk/Funkadelic themes, as their lead singer George Clinton voices the king of the funk trolls) has such a weird fluidity to it that contrasts with the rest of the movie’s visual style. Distinct color choices and art direction are used for the lands representing each musical genre of the troll world. This movie is EYE CANDY. Through and through. I would imagine most animation fans found a lot to like in the visuals alone. It’s much like DreamWorks’ own Captain Underpants, a movie that just embraces the fact that it’s animated.
Trolls World Tour functions fine as a fast-paced adventure, though sometimes it can get a little overwhelming in its breakneck speed and flashy musical sequences. What especially works is its commentary on musical genres. Barb the hard rock queen troll (played by a standout Rachel Bloom) insults every genre she’s trying to eradicate, calling classical a snoozefest, techno a bunch of “bleeps and bloops”, and pop all kinds of insults. It kind of reminded me of how I was at age 15, scoffing at modern pop music and rap and most current genres that weren’t rock or something older than 1990. I see that sentiment a lot of fans who narrow their tastes down to one genre. Rock fans hate pop, pop fans don’t like rock, pop fans don’t like country, etc. Dohrn even emphasized in an interview that he and his team carefully chose the genres for each of the troll lands, and made sure that the jokes landed without offending or stereotyping. While it appears to be a simple, garden-variety call for diversity, Trolls World Tour actually takes the time to note (see what I did there?) the distinction between advocating diversity and making everybody from different backgrounds all the same. Queen Poppy wants to do just the latter in order to “unite” everyone in the troll world. Trolls World Tour essentially called out cultural appropriation, and I was happy to see that they did so in a non-pedantic way. Differentiating itself from other recent animated works that have a good moral or two, Trolls World Tour briefly explains appropriation in a way that kids can understand (heck, adults probably have to hear that more), without feeling like an out-of-movie lesson, not taking the youngsters for granted. It’s woven carefully into the story, and the sequence it’s brought up in, working off of Poppy’s genuine flaws as an unrealistic leader, and as someone who clearly doesn’t listen to others. How different is she from our antagonist, really? Another family-friendly animated movie might’ve bungled that, or ignored that layer, but this didn’t, so my hat is off to the five screenwriters here. Even without these themes, Trolls World Tour still would’ve gotten by on its sheer fun and visual delights. Sometimes a good movie is just pure fun with likeable characters, and a something’s extra.
Onward and Trolls World Tour are both very satisfying movies in their own unique way. No, they don’t share a high echelon with the greatest animated features, or even the best works made by their respective studios… They don’t need to. Animation remains a valid medium, and no “simply good” or “decent” movie is going to diminish that. Not every animated movie that Walt Disney oversaw in his lifetime was a masterpiece. Which ones were and which ones weren’t, that is all subjective of course. For the most part, critics do give good scores to these kinds of films, but I feel that some out there knock them for not being the greatest thing in the whole wide world. I already stressed that Pixar gets this whenever they make a good-but-not-great movie. Then of course, you have your typical condescending reviews that look at just about any animated movie as a babysitter (“Your kids will like it, but will you??”). I go into every animated movie approaching it as a movie, something I’m going to watch for my personal enjoyment. Will “I” enjoy it as a film? Not “Will I think this is a masterpiece?” or “Will I want to down the Jack Daniels when watching this?” I embrace animated movies like just about anything, really. I want to watch this, I hope I enjoy it! Why would I unrealistically expect every film made in a particular medium to be this one kind of movie?