TROLL (2022)

TROLL (2022)

Tagline: Mountains will move.

(Action, Adventure, Yelling, And Screaming) [PG-13]

Note: This movie was never given an MPAA rating. It did get released in the US with the TV-14 tag, which is essentially the small-screen version of PG-13. 

Even egghead doesn’t want to give up. 

This story revolves around an awakened force from within a mountain in Dovre, Norway. It doesn’t take long before paleontologist Nora Tidemann realizes that her father’s stories of Norwegian folklore may be real. At first elusive, the now very visible giant has gained the attention of the military and Prime Minister. Can the beast be destroyed before it reaches the capital? Should it be destroyed?

I think when you start talking about this movie, naturally, you can’t avoid thinking of 2010’s TROLL HUNTER, which also came out of Norway. For me, this movie was nearly everything I expected from TROLL HUNTER given the movie’s poster. Instead, TROLL HUNTER was basically a found footage film with like 10 hours of talking before we finally get to the trolls. TROLL however is not. This movie is dubbed for the US release, but you might also be able to find the original version out there. 

Seemingly borrowing a lot from the LEGENDARY GODZILLA “Monsterverse” series and adding in some Norwegian folklore, we end up with a pretty fun kaiju romp involving a seemingly invincible troll. I am guessing the troll is supposed to be about the size of Kong in KONG: SKULL ISLAND. One thing this movie does better than GODZILLA is giving us a lot of this troll. I mean, he’s everywhere in this movie and it’s a really good thing, because while the characters are “likable”, the story and script are almost completely void of being the strong point of this film. I love campy, I love goofy, and I love nonsense, but given the production level of this movie, it feels like whoever wrote this was just mostly focused on climate change and some sort of lesson we are supposed to learn.

I never go to movies like this to learn stuff. I just want “something” giant stomping everything in sight and this movie delivers in spades on that level. We even see a vehicle getting kicked like it was Lego. It’s freakin awesome. The effects are actually extremely top notch and as much as I love the “Monsterverse” the effect here rival those films pretty well. Granted, this troll would not beat Godzilla, so just settle down right now. 

The performances are fine and I thought Ine Marie Wilmann was a good choice for the female lead. She plays Nora in this and for the most part, I thought her character was cool. Having said that, she is one of these people that would try and understand the emotions of a rattlesnake if it snuck in her house, rather than trying to get rid of it or even cage it. Those are the type of people that a likely to get you killed. I also liked Mads Sjøgård Pettersen who plays Kaptein Kristoffer Holm (or Captain Kris). This wasn’t Pettersen’s first rodeo with trolls, he also appeared in the film THE ASH LAD: IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING which also features a giant troll. Kim Falck was also very good as Andreas Isaksen. I will say that no one was really asked to stretch much emotionally in this film even though Nora runs into a real life-changing event. She just kinda gets over it in 5 minutes. 

I won’t give away any spoilers here, but overall this movie is actually a pretty fun romp and it’s definitely the superior of the two when you compare this to TROLL HUNTER. I do wish we had gotten more than one troll there. Having said that, the movie is called TROLL, not trolls. 

This is a 6 out of 7 for me. I came for a giant troll stomping the crap out of stuff and that’s what I got. Then when you throw in great effects and characters I don’t hate that’s how you get a 6 rating. 

GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF MOTION BLUR FILMS AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY. 

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