 I took the kids to see trolls. I didn't really have a lot of expectations going in. I figured it'd just be another way to pass the time, waste my useless life away, and entertain my children so that I don't have to for a couple hours. Sometimes, you just need someone to help you find it. DreamWorks. Trolls. I then took them to the park down the- on the road. We- and I interviewed them about the film. Connor, my four-year-old, had zero interest in talking to me, which is- that's- I respect that. Connor, what would you give the movie a one or a ten? Connor, what would you give the movie? Connor, what would you give the movie? A one or a ten. Connor, what would you give the movie? A one or a ten. But my daughter Olivia had a few things to say, and it just reminds me of how different adults and kids view things in the world. To a child, especially under the- you know, ten and under, everything is great. They see a movie, that's their favorite movie. They go to another movie, that's their favorite movie, or at least it's up there. I envy those little scamps. I wish I could go to a movie and still have that sort of appreciation and admiration for a film because the work's there. You can see it on the screen, the hard time-consuming energy that's put into making these animated characters. It reminded me- the style of the film reminded me of a game called Little Big Planet. The art style's very kinda arts and crafty, scrapbook-y. It's beautifully done, it's really nice. Where the movie loses you, or lost me at least, was once the plot kinda really starts to kick in and they go to the village of these evil characters that are eating the trolls. So the evil creatures, the evil characters, the basic plot is this, trolls only do three things. They sing, they dance, they hug. Every hour they hug, that's a requirement. You know, I think maybe if more people lived that way in the real world, we wouldn't have such a shitty election option here coming up. Maybe people would be nicer to each other and there'd be less hate all around. So the message of the film is a little bit murky. There's the one troll played by Justin Timberlake, who's great, doesn't have any joy in his life. You already know by the end of this film he's going to learn to be happy and whatnot. He's got a backstory that made him this way. He's a planner. He's like, these guys are gonna come back. They're gonna find us in our new hiding spot. We need to be ready. I got ten years of supplies. Why are you guys singing and being loud all the time? You're going to invite them back in. And so the message there is, you gotta be prepared. You know, you gotta expect the unexpected. You gotta work for the future. But that's like totally lost by the second, third act of the film. You're like, wait, what? None of that planning mattered at all. Really. Here's a fun fact and one of the reasons I'm a bitter, hateful person. I record my audio separately on my phone using this external mic and I just looked down and saw that it hasn't been recording at all. So we're going directly off the camera because who cares about quality on YouTube anyways, right? The story is a little weird and it gets even more bizarre when it goes into the Cinderella-esque third act where the king falls in love for another of his kind and the trolls of course help put them together, help them fall in love and you know where the movie's going right away. So from the story aspect, it's not interesting in the slightest. So first she had rainbow hair, then she spent rainbow hair and oh my gosh, that was the first part of my dream, I mean, on my life. Tomorrow, eat a little jail. Me have Cinderella a little bit, I mean. Kendricks is the lead troll. She, it's got a very pitch-perfect vibe to it. She's leading them in a lot of musical numbers. A lot of them are throwbacks to the 80s and 90s because we love those member berries. The new songs are good. I wish there was more new songs. JT's of course got his main theme song that busts out later and Kendricks has a great number kind of towards the middle of the film where she's out on her own journey and that whole sequence is phenomenal. I loved that section of the film where it's a solid four minutes of great visuals, the music's great, the creativity on screen is there, the jokes are funny, I would have loved to see more of that. If you're a parent wondering if it's fine for your kids, absolutely. I took my seven-year-old, four-year-old, they sat through it the entire time, no issues at all, didn't even have to get up to go to the bathroom, which is impressive, especially for the four-year-old. There's nothing scary in it, there's nothing controversial. It's a very, very family-friendly, safe film. There's one other part that really made me laugh and that's with the rain cloud character who's criminally underused in the film. He's not in it near enough. I would have liked to see 20% more of him, but it's this handshake thing they do and he just keeps doing all these different funny animated moves with his hands as he's giving this guy a handshake and it's very comical, it's very fun. So there's little moments like that that stand out and you can tell that there's some fun going on in the writer's room on those scenes. I've grown up and I've grown bitter and movies just aren't what they used to be for me. Maybe movies just aren't what they used to be in general. I can't tell anymore because of social media and how convoluted and gross everything is on the internet. You just don't know. Like, oh, this movie is controversial because of this. This movie's got whitewashing. This movie went through 16 rewrites and it has nothing to do with the original source material and they only made this movie because they needed to retain the rights for another year and they only made this movie because people remember it for nostalgic reasons and they had no desire to make it other than to make money. It's just, it's so hard to know. And then you watch the movie and all these things spin in your head or you watch the movie and you think, why was this made? This has no purpose. What, trolls? Who the hell cares about trolls? Trolls have an entirely different meaning now on the internet. This isn't what I know a troll is. I just wish I could go back. I wish I could be a kid again. Playing on the playground out of care in the world. Don't have to worry about who to vote for and what to wear and how to act. You know what, just in Timberlake's song really, it really makes me happy. It really makes me feel like dancing. So I'm going to put that on and I'm going to, you know what, I'm going to dance. I'm going to have some fun. I'm going to loosen up a little bit, you know? Not be so serious. Why does life have to be so serious? Let's put it on.