Movie Review: Trollhunters
So yesterday I wrote a review about a movie that failed to live up to my expectations in almost all regards: Green Lantern. Today I will review a movie that exceeded my expectations in all ways: Trollhunter (Trolljegeren).
What was I expecting? Not much, to be honest. The trailers I saw made it look like a bad Norwegian Blair Witch Project. I didn’t know a lot about it going in, and really the only reason I saw it was because it was in the right time slot about the time my cabin fever reached an unbearable level.
What did I get? A verite style documentary that was fun, funny, and at times terrifying. Sure it was a Blair Witch knock off, but these days if you do anything involving a camera guy running through a forest at night it’s going to be called Blair Witch. Well written, and well done in all regards, it is what reality TV aspires to be.
Anyway, the story. A group of film students comes across a mysterious bearded man in Norway who seems to be doing all kinds of suspicious stuff. At first thinking him a bear poacher they follow him around, filming constantly in hopes of getting some good footage for their school project. Eventually they follow him into the woods, only to encounter him running out of the woods yelling “Troll!” They later befriend him, and he agrees to let them film him as he goes about is government appointed job of hunting down trolls.
I don’t want to get too much into the story, as it really isn’t that relevant for the purpose of this review and also because I hope you will all go see it yourself. Sufficed to say troll hunting hijinks ensues. Trolls and people get killed. There are a lot of subtle references to the Three Billy Goats Gruff, complete with a troll under a bridge. In spite of the source material, everyone involved takes trolls entirely seriously, like a good zombie movie. There is no attempt at levity. The trolls are terrifying, each bigger and badder than the last. Truly a great movie.
First, the stars. Overall fun and entertaining. Two stars. For being a documentary style film we were not subjected to too much of camera shots of a dog or the camera mans’ foot unless it made sense in the movie. One star. The acting and characters, especially of Hans, the Trollhunter, we excellent. One star. They didn’t pull that bull crap pseudo documentary trick of only showing sounds and guys running from something through the trees. Once you start seeing trolls you see them all the time. One star. For some not so great CGI the trolls are truly terrifying. About 100,000,000 times scarier that Parallax from the Green Lantern, or any of the other so-called scary monsters in most movies out there. Maybe it was the verite shooting, or maybe because they seemed somehow more probably. Just scary. Two stars. For an obvious small budget, really good special effects and film work. One star. While slow at times, the film was well paced and led to a climactic conclusion. One star. In spite of the fantastical nature of the film premise, everything seemed very reasonable and believable. Things worked the way you would imagine, and everyone acted in a reasonably sane manner. When things got hairy they ran like hell. One star. There were some funny moments that were not outright jokes. You just had to see the underlying humor. One star. It was a thinking person’s movie, without all the crap Hollywood saddles us with to appeal to the morons (sorry, still feeling the sting from Green Lantern). One star. Total: twelve stars.
Now the black holes. Not a lot, but a few. First of all, while I truly appreciate the value of showing the film in it’s actual language to best deliver the original emotions and nuance of the actors, I sometimes find subtitles hard to deal with. One black hole. While he was one of the funniest characters in the film, I had a hard time understanding the motivations of the government agent that was tailing the Trollhunter. Seemed a little disjointed. One black hole.
Grand total of 10 stars, an awesome score and by coincidence exactly as good as Green Lantern was bad. I highly recommend you all go out and see this film in the theater. Do so quickly as I don’t think it will be around for much longer.
As a final note, it irks me that this film, with 1/100th the budget of Green Lantern (if that), is so much better. I don’t know if it is independent movies, or just foreign ones, but there are so many better movies being made than most of the garbage being fed to us by Hollywood. I honestly think the difference is that independent film makers actually still respects the audience, whereas Hollywood thinks of us a brainless, child like cash cows. Of course, based on what is popular in media these days (cough cough reality TV cough cough) I can’t say as I really blame them.
Die, troll! Die! (Troll image courtesy of the cheap t shirt category)
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