Troll 2 is so-called because it’s the sequel to Roar Uthaug’s surprise kaiju comedy Troll, which became a mega-hit on Netflix when it was released out of nowhere in 2022. But you could take the title more literally if you were that way inclined, since it’s also about two trolls as opposed to one, making it twice as big as its predecessor but, oddly, only half as good. As it turns out, there wasn’t much justification for a sequel, which should have been called Trolls if you ask me, though I suppose DreamWorks would have something to say if it was.
The first film worked because it was surprisingly funny, with the comedy underpinning the creature feature action, and if we’re being charitable, the same claim can be made about the sequel. But the novelty is wearing thin, and it quickly becomes apparent that, outside of some good gags and decent VFX and a couple of pleasingly hefty set-pieces, there just isn’t much of a movie here. The plot feels repetitive, any intended political and social commentary is so light as to pass by unnoticed, and the characters are thin and inconsistent. I’ve now seen two of these movies, and I still have no idea whether we’re supposed to be rooting for the trolls or not.
All available evidence seems to suggest the trolls have a point. Nora (Ine Marie Wilmann), who returns alongside ministerial adviser Andreas (Kim Falck), is pretty adamant about the trolls being living beings with complex emotions and feelings, and she’s openly critical when she’s taken to a government black site to discover that another beardy titan is being kept on ice. This mega-troll has a decent enough motivation when he eventually, and inevitably, snaps into life. He’s out for revenge against the entirety of Norway on account of its history of devout Christian orthodoxy having led to the culling of his entire race. How is this the bad guy?
Troll 2 never quite makes this bit clear. There’s another troll, the son of the “villain” from the first one, who is a good guy by virtue of being in opposition to the new mega-troll, but there’s never any meaningful clarification of their differences. Nora can’t seem to decide, either. She’s quick to lecture people on the folly of interfering in the natural order, but she’s also quick to team up with another returning character, Captain Kris (Mads Sjøgård Pettersen), to fire grenades full of holy water at the bad troll. The general takeaway seems to be that the troll probably has a point, but he’s also going to inadvertently destroy the city of Trondheim, where some nice people live, so he must die. I wish I were making that up.
What was advantageous about the original for some reason feels more played out here. The script can’t decide if it wants to be a family-friendly comedy caper, a Scandi version of Legendary’s MonsterVerse, or, weirdly, National Treasure. A surprising amount is made of Norse mythology’s intersection with real-world religious and political history, but it’s extremely threadbare, and the characters can’t seem to decide which aspects of it they believe at any given moment. At one point, everybody marvels at Nora’s ability to communicate Arrival-style with a troll she dubs “Beautiful”, but then everyone’s rallying around to kill the other troll with extreme prejudice. It’s a little weird.
The comedy, too, ends up becoming a double-edged sword, especially late on when the script – by Uthaug and Espen Aukan – tries to play for emotional sentiment that it hasn’t really earned. There are stand-out set-pieces, including the bad troll ransacking a nightclub and a climactic Godzilla vs. Kong-style showdown, but it’s all pretty facile. We don’t get many creature features these days, though, so it’ll probably be successful either way. I’ll see you in three years when the next one comes out.
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