(NOTE: The following review will contain minor spoilers necessary solely for the discussion of plot and/or characters. If you’re the type of reader who prefers a review entirely spoiler-free, then I’d encourage you to skip down to the last few paragraphs for the final assessment. If, however, you’re accepting of a few modest hints at ‘things to come,’ then read on …)
From the film’s IMDB.com page citation:
“Deep in the Dovre Mountain, something gigantic wakes up after a thousand years in captivity. The creature destroys everything in its path and quickly approaches Oslo.”
Folks, I don’t stream properties nearly as much as others who chat up films as much as I do.
Now, this isn’t to say that I don’t like it because nothing could be further from the truth. I’m a diehard cineaste – have been for several decades now – and I’ll likely remain so until my dying breath. The point is that I just don’t expend an awful lot of time scrolling through online libraries – I’m not prone to rifle through selections and choices, no matter how user friendly their construction – so I take a good deal of that which I invest my time with based on my own research. This is largely accomplished by following certain sites online. As a consequence, a little film like Troll (2022) that may’ve enjoyed wider coverage in mainstream press went completely past me without a mention.
I wish I’d known of it back when it first screened (I believe that was always via Netflix) as I certainly would’ve talked it up on SciFiHistory.Net’s Main Page mostly because it’s exactly the type of feature I’d like to promote to the readership. As a somewhat traditional Fantasy – the likes of which we don’t often see set in our world in present times – it may not interest everyone, but the production has the right performances, some good effects sequences, and a story interesting enough to appeal across audiences; so pardon me if I’m playing a bit of ‘catch up’ highlighting its goodness in this space for you today.
Paleontologist Nora Tidemann (played by the fetching Ine Marie Wilmann) has finally begun realizing her own professional dreams: as a researcher, she’s taken with searching the unexplored regions of Norway in pursuit of dinosaur fossils. Estranged from her father Tobias (Gard B. Eidsvold), she’s “buried” herself in her career … but when a nearby construction mishap ultimately releases something hidden beneath the ground that the government and military experts can’t quite comprehend, she’s called into service owed to her expertise on creatures lost to history. Lo and behold, the lady is the first to suspect that what’s been unearthed is, in fact, a troll – the likes of which her native country hasn’t seen for millennia. Her prognosis requires her to team-up with her dad – one of Norway’s last remaining experts on the elusive subject – and, together, they’re tasked with stopping the lumbering behemoth before it destroys the capital city.
From the film’s IMDB.com page citation:
“Deep in the Dovre Mountain, something gigantic wakes up after a thousand years in captivity. The creature destroys everything in its path and quickly approaches Oslo.”
Folks, I don’t stream properties nearly as much as others who chat up films as much as I do.
Now, this isn’t to say that I don’t like it because nothing could be further from the truth. I’m a diehard cineaste – have been for several decades now – and I’ll likely remain so until my dying breath. The point is that I just don’t expend an awful lot of time scrolling through online libraries – I’m not prone to rifle through selections and choices, no matter how user friendly their construction – so I take a good deal of that which I invest my time with based on my own research. This is largely accomplished by following certain sites online. As a consequence, a little film like Troll (2022) that may’ve enjoyed wider coverage in mainstream press went completely past me without a mention.
I wish I’d known of it back when it first screened (I believe that was always via Netflix) as I certainly would’ve talked it up on SciFiHistory.Net’s Main Page mostly because it’s exactly the type of feature I’d like to promote to the readership. As a somewhat traditional Fantasy – the likes of which we don’t often see set in our world in present times – it may not interest everyone, but the production has the right performances, some good effects sequences, and a story interesting enough to appeal across audiences; so pardon me if I’m playing a bit of ‘catch up’ highlighting its goodness in this space for you today.
Paleontologist Nora Tidemann (played by the fetching Ine Marie Wilmann) has finally begun realizing her own professional dreams: as a researcher, she’s taken with searching the unexplored regions of Norway in pursuit of dinosaur fossils. Estranged from her father Tobias (Gard B. Eidsvold), she’s “buried” herself in her career … but when a nearby construction mishap ultimately releases something hidden beneath the ground that the government and military experts can’t quite comprehend, she’s called into service owed to her expertise on creatures lost to history. Lo and behold, the lady is the first to suspect that what’s been unearthed is, in fact, a troll – the likes of which her native country hasn’t seen for millennia. Her prognosis requires her to team-up with her dad – one of Norway’s last remaining experts on the elusive subject – and, together, they’re tasked with stopping the lumbering behemoth before it destroys the capital city.
Mind you – as is always the case – there’s a bit more to the film’s synopsis, but this services much more succinctly than what little IMDB.com has to say about the picture. Essentially, what you get with Troll is an old-fashioned monster movie made reasonably vibrant and new for the modern age. The central goblin is a dandy of a thing – not all that unlike what Treebeard was in Peter Jackson’s stellar The Lord Of The Rings adaptation but vastly more defined with Earth and stone – and it moves about the countryside as any great goliath would, leaving a trail of destruction in its path. And just like those classic monsters of the bygone era, the script from Espan Aukan and director Roar Uthaug imbues its creature with a delightful sense of sympathy: it didn’t ask to be born, it didn’t ask to be released and create so much chaos, and it just wants a return to the bygone era where things were simpler.
Alas, you can already hear me warning, “That, my friend, was never meant to be …”
Uthaug stages his big screen Fantasy with great efficiency. While some might take issue with some obviousness of a few CGI sequences (FYI: there were likely no trolls available in central casting), this picture and its degree of wholesome charm sticks close to a kinda/sorta loose ‘fairy tale’ sensibility, invoking a measure of simplicity to solve each successive dilemma. (It ain’t rocket science, but – because it’s grounded in mythology – some of its been forgotten by today’s society.) Thankfully, little moss grows on any of this – creature included – and Troll keeps plodding forward, step by step, never quite allowing a cynical viewer’s creeping skepticism to get in the way. As a tidy and adventurous day in the mountains, it excels at a lean-and-mean 100 minutes.
As its director, Uthaug deserves a good deal of credit for keeping things in motion. His 2015 effort – The Wave – is a surprisingly stylish disaster flick that, to some extent, really put his ability to juxtapose action against human drama in the spotlight; and – for what’s it worth – I think I’m one of the few who actually enjoyed his 2018 re-introduction of Tomb Raider to the theatrical marketplace. (I’d still love to see a sequel to that one, folks.) Clearly, he’s comfortable martialing the behind-the-scenes pieces of film production – especially when it’s all about thrills, chills, and spills – and I’ve no doubt he squeezed every penny he could to get the best onscreen that was possible. Troll works, even when you think it shouldn’t.
Wilmann is quite good as a lesser action-female lead. While the story doesn’t require her to have the rough-and-tumble skills Lara Croft did, her Nora Tidemann is no lightweight. Digging around the mud, she’s used to getting dirty, and she’s definitely willing to roll up her sleeves and show what she’s made of if it’s required. The script pairs her up with Kim Falck – as the Prime Minister’s assistant – and the two muster a respectable amount of screen chemistry (entirely platonic) though he gets hamstrung here and there as little more than comic relief. There’s also a military attache – Captain Kristoffer Holm (Mads Sjøgård Pettersen) – wherein I suspect some personal entanglement may’ve been intended; but thankfully none of it really gets in the way as the focus remains on the main mission … which is to save life as we know it before all Hells breaks loose.
My only issue with Troll has to do with its formulaic predictability.
Alas, you can already hear me warning, “That, my friend, was never meant to be …”
Uthaug stages his big screen Fantasy with great efficiency. While some might take issue with some obviousness of a few CGI sequences (FYI: there were likely no trolls available in central casting), this picture and its degree of wholesome charm sticks close to a kinda/sorta loose ‘fairy tale’ sensibility, invoking a measure of simplicity to solve each successive dilemma. (It ain’t rocket science, but – because it’s grounded in mythology – some of its been forgotten by today’s society.) Thankfully, little moss grows on any of this – creature included – and Troll keeps plodding forward, step by step, never quite allowing a cynical viewer’s creeping skepticism to get in the way. As a tidy and adventurous day in the mountains, it excels at a lean-and-mean 100 minutes.
As its director, Uthaug deserves a good deal of credit for keeping things in motion. His 2015 effort – The Wave – is a surprisingly stylish disaster flick that, to some extent, really put his ability to juxtapose action against human drama in the spotlight; and – for what’s it worth – I think I’m one of the few who actually enjoyed his 2018 re-introduction of Tomb Raider to the theatrical marketplace. (I’d still love to see a sequel to that one, folks.) Clearly, he’s comfortable martialing the behind-the-scenes pieces of film production – especially when it’s all about thrills, chills, and spills – and I’ve no doubt he squeezed every penny he could to get the best onscreen that was possible. Troll works, even when you think it shouldn’t.
Wilmann is quite good as a lesser action-female lead. While the story doesn’t require her to have the rough-and-tumble skills Lara Croft did, her Nora Tidemann is no lightweight. Digging around the mud, she’s used to getting dirty, and she’s definitely willing to roll up her sleeves and show what she’s made of if it’s required. The script pairs her up with Kim Falck – as the Prime Minister’s assistant – and the two muster a respectable amount of screen chemistry (entirely platonic) though he gets hamstrung here and there as little more than comic relief. There’s also a military attache – Captain Kristoffer Holm (Mads Sjøgård Pettersen) – wherein I suspect some personal entanglement may’ve been intended; but thankfully none of it really gets in the way as the focus remains on the main mission … which is to save life as we know it before all Hells breaks loose.
My only issue with Troll has to do with its formulaic predictability.
The reason I tend to prefer smaller (independent) and foreign releases is because they’re typically void of what feels like any possible studio influence. In other words, their stories feel a bit more organic – a bit more natural – and there isn’t this big money high-tech veneer over every element of film production. Some blockbusters these days sadly feel like they’re the invention of a room full of executives who went to great pains to tick off every box on the list, including plot details, shooting locations, costumes, and (cough cough) diversity issues. Foreign properties – as has been my experience – haven’t felt as though they were assembled by blueprint … and, yet, Troll does. It feels very much like it could’ve been a Hollywood vehicle, especially with some rather obvious inclusivity issues that rear their ugly head in the last reel.
Now, maybe that’s just a one-off. Maybe I’m seeing a little something there that wasn’t a studio invention but was, instead, just a little minor political statement included by a savvy director. I’m hoping it isn’t a trend – it felt very out of place, and no I’m not gonna say what it is – and I’ll just have to wait and see. In the meantime, I’m going to enjoy Troll for what it ultimately was … a solid popcorn movie – not to be taken seriously – with just enough spit polish to make for a good evening in front of the television.
Troll (2022) was produced by Motion Blur Films. Presently, the film shows available for streaming on Netflix. As for the technical specifications? Wowza. While I’m no trained video expert, I thought that its provided sights-and-sounds were nothing short of spectacular: a few sequences might be a tad underwhelming, but they work just fine for the audience intended.
Strongly recommended.
Troll (2022) is the old monster movie made new again. It has some solid special effects. It has a cast you can care about but, perhaps, not build an entire world around. It has the kind of idea one doesn’t want to think too deeply about for fear of having it fall apart at the seams. But … charm? It has that in spades; and it even ends with the promise of a possible sequel … though if none ever develops that’s perfectly fine as well. An evenly paced adventure … the kind studios used to make routinely but rarely find the light of day in these modern times.
In the interests of fairness, I’m pleased to disclose that I’m beholden to no one for this review of Troll (2022). In point of fact, I streamed it as part of my very own subscription to Netflix … so take that, readers!
-- EZ
Now, maybe that’s just a one-off. Maybe I’m seeing a little something there that wasn’t a studio invention but was, instead, just a little minor political statement included by a savvy director. I’m hoping it isn’t a trend – it felt very out of place, and no I’m not gonna say what it is – and I’ll just have to wait and see. In the meantime, I’m going to enjoy Troll for what it ultimately was … a solid popcorn movie – not to be taken seriously – with just enough spit polish to make for a good evening in front of the television.
Troll (2022) was produced by Motion Blur Films. Presently, the film shows available for streaming on Netflix. As for the technical specifications? Wowza. While I’m no trained video expert, I thought that its provided sights-and-sounds were nothing short of spectacular: a few sequences might be a tad underwhelming, but they work just fine for the audience intended.
Strongly recommended.
Troll (2022) is the old monster movie made new again. It has some solid special effects. It has a cast you can care about but, perhaps, not build an entire world around. It has the kind of idea one doesn’t want to think too deeply about for fear of having it fall apart at the seams. But … charm? It has that in spades; and it even ends with the promise of a possible sequel … though if none ever develops that’s perfectly fine as well. An evenly paced adventure … the kind studios used to make routinely but rarely find the light of day in these modern times.
In the interests of fairness, I’m pleased to disclose that I’m beholden to no one for this review of Troll (2022). In point of fact, I streamed it as part of my very own subscription to Netflix … so take that, readers!
-- EZ
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