Jonah Naplan   November 21, 2023

As a kids’ movie, “Trolls Band Together” is very, very good. Maybe even great. The animation is colorful and exciting, it teaches important lessons for the kids to take home and for the parents to continue discussing with them, there’s rarely a dull moment or a slump in the pacing, and there’s always some sort of action happening on-screen. It’s a candy-coated holiday treat, or the visual equivalent of jumping into a massive pit of Skittles. It will work the absolute best for elementary schoolers under a certain age. That said, this critic passed the age of demographic for this type of movie long ago, so I can’t say I was particularly riveted by the plot, the characters, or the humor. If I was eight years old, as I was when the first “Trolls” released in 2016 (and a little side note: circumstance had it that I saw both this film and the first “Trolls” in not only the exact same movie theater but the exact same auditorium too), I would have loved it. And though I’m now a teenager, my years of wisdom and age abiding me, you could still do far worse this Thanksgiving.

I’d suspect you don’t need to have seen the other two “Trolls” movies to pursue “Band Together,” but it may help. The film—which of course tries to accommodate for the broadest possible audience, including toddlers who don’t yet possess the mental capacity to comprehend a movie—does not rely on your knowledge of previous events in the “Trolls” chronology to tell its story, though it does namedrop and occasionally show events and characters integral to the predecessors in order to reward those who are connoisseurs of the franchise. For the most part though, because it doesn’t belong to any interconnected multiverse or quantum timeline, “Trolls Band Together” is a completely standalone story with no expectations it has to service or plotlines it must continue for the sake of future installments. What a relief!

An opening flashback provides all the exposition we might need to understand this fable. Branch (Justin Timberlake) was once a member of a boy band (millennial moms rejoice!) called BroZone, alongside his older brothers John Dory (Eric André), Spruce (Daveed Diggs), Clay (Kid Cudi), and Floyd (Troye Sivan), but the group split up over disagreements about whether a “perfect harmony” could ever be achieved; a vocal tour de force so powerful that it could supposedly shatter diamonds. In the present day, the wedding of King Gristle (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) and Bridget (Zooey Deschanel), two Bergens from the first movie, in case you’ve forgotten, is interrupted by the sudden arrival of John Dory who, having not seen any of his brothers in 20 years, informs Branch that Floyd has been imprisoned by brother and sister pop stars, Velvet and Veneer (played by Amy Schumer and Andrew Rannells respectively), who are using the poor troll to enhance their singing chops, ultimately milking him of his talent.

So Branch and John Dory set off on a quest to get the band back together and retrieve their long-lost brother, alongside the always cheerful Poppy (Anna Kendrick), and Tiny Diamond (Kenan Thompson), the latter of whom receives so much screen-time but is so unimportant narratively that he could be plucked right from the movie, and you might not even notice. The group encounters plenty of odd ducks on their journey, as well as enough new revelations to satisfy multiple sequels instead of just this one, which inevitably makes it hard to shake the feeling that “Band Together” is too overcrowded. But I digress.

Notable pit-stops include Spruce’s household, of which he’s found himself a wife and half a dozen kids, who each look like unholy fusions between the original Trolls dolls of the 1960s and yarn puppets, as well as what appears to be an eerie amusement park that ushers Viva (Camila Cabello) into the franchise, eventually revealed to be Poppy’s long-lost sister. No way! These sequences are all rendered with gorgeous animation styles, that shift and change as the characters travel through different regions, highlighting the assorted species that call it home. Like “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish,” “Band Together” is working in service of innovation, and it succeeds—it’s one of the most aesthetically interesting animated movies of the year.

That to say, “Band Together” gets so easily bogged down by predictability. I could have aced a test on the plot of the movie before even seeing it, and I’d suspect that most kids could too. Luckily, the film has just enough imagination and its own sense of style to make it truly hard to hate, which is nice. Even cynical viewers will probably find some aspect, if minor, to appreciate here, and if that doesn’t come in the form of the ambition, then it’ll likely be its dedication to entertain an audience.

The movie is a lot like an energetic puppy that really wants to be your friend, but can also be calm and cuddly when you start to get annoyed. First and second graders will get a big kick out of it, singing along to the music, laughing at the slapstick, and watching intently as Branch and his brothers demonstrate teamwork, despite differences, to remedy a mutual problem. Older teens and parents will watch, their minds sometimes floating elsewhere, never offended by the screen, but also never so much as inclined to pay good attention to the movie like how the best animated films from Pixar and Studio Ghibli appeal to any homosapien with a brain and with a heart. There’s similarly nothing here that will make the movie stand out in any meaningful way in the next decade, nor anything that attaches us to these characters on an emotional level, because we already know that “no Troll is left behind,” and that these are not the types of movies where any major character we might care about will perish. So “Trolls Band Together” is another simple entertainment with heart and with charm and not much else. For the children, that will be enough.

Now playing in theaters.