It looks beautiful, the music is pretty damn good (Despite about 50% of her movies being musicals, I feel Anna Kendrick as a singer is woefully underrated), and the moral is not one you really see in a kid's movie: "Your happiness depends on you."
With "Onward" being oddly underwhelming, and most animated movies being somewhat in limbo, I wonder what the Oscar race will look like this year.
"Soul" will probably be pushed to November, as I have it on somewhat good authority that "Raya and The Last Dragon" is a bit behind.
But, "Trolls: World Tour". Now we have more musical genre trolls. In a move that would make Millar's Batman proud*, the enemy is a Rock and Roll troll named Barb...whom I love.
This one tried to shove in morals that are just different enough to make this feel unfocused, although I could see what they were attempting to accomplish.
It's a large mash of both "You're not always right", "Stop trying to homogenize us," and "Colonialism is bad, even when we do it.". Even the troll kingdom voiced by black people are like "Hey, you tried to colonize US.". There's even a dance number. Imagine trying to explain the colonization of the Americas to white America with a song. If it was Taylor Swift, they'd listen. Finally.
*I am vaguely aware of the Batman run where he hated rock and roll.
Side character plots are inserted in so infrequently, I forget about them. Unfortunately, to a degree, Barb, our antagonist, suffers from this too.
Is it still beautiful? Absolutely.
Still annoyed the Soul Trolls did not give us that awesome version of "Boogie Wonderland" the teaser for the first Trolls movie gave us.
Weirdly, the climax is almost the exact same as the first movie, down to colors (or lack there of). Hell, the moral is a slightly modified version. With the exception of the lovely, improved visuals, a handful of the songs (Mainly the Country ones), and the inclusion of Barb, you are better off watching the first one.
At least it's funny and has a lot more better music. It's the opposite of the "Frozen" problem.
It's hard to pin down what exactly this movie is first at being. "First at intending to be theatrical and home release on the same day"? - As Universal did not push it back like they did "F9", but eschewed the theatrical release entirely - to the ire of theater owners.
There has been speculation that this movie was tracking to flop theatrically anyway, before Coronavirus - but that's not something we, in this dimension, can prove.
Theater owners had hopes for it, and Universal may have damaged their relationship with the chains by announcing this plan so suddenly. Will theaters still give "F9" prime seats and IMAX screens next year (Yes, the delay is until 2021)?
You may be wondering "But wait, didn't Disney do the same thing?"
Yes and no.
Disney pushed back at least 6 pictures ("Eternals", "Jungle Cruise", "Mulan", "Antlers", "Black Widow", and the much-cursed "New Mutants") before taking "Artemis Fowl" and declaring a Disney+ release for it. Theaters will still get money from those other 4 movies ("New Mutants" pending) - "Mulan" is currently scheduled for this summer now (reports now vary between July and August).
An August release for it would possibly capitalize on people's desperation to get out of the house to see both "Mulan" and Warner Bros. "Wonder Woman 84" in the same month.
Personally, I don't think "Trolls" would have warranted a visit to the theater anyway, and I do understand theater owners complaints.
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