Movie Review: The Troll Hunter

I first learned about this film when I read somewhere [1] that Chris Columbus (probably best known for directing Home Alone and the first two Harry Potter movies) had acquired the rights to remake the movie in English.[2] The title sounded intriguing, so I watched the trailer [3], added it to my Netflix queue, and then forgot about it. Fast forward several months. Some of my friends from the former BYU 38th Ward Book Club started discussing and I couldn't remember why it seemed so familiar to me—especially after watching the trailer (again). I went to add it to my Netflix queue and then it all came flooding back. This wasn't just déjà vu! I really had seen that movie trailer before! I decided not to put it off any longer.

My verdict: I liked this film for the most part. The cinematography included some spectacular footage of the Norwegian fjords. The filmmakers do an excellent job of world building; they're quite creative. I would've liked more details about the different types of trolls. Unfortunately most of the best footage of the trolls makes it into the trailer, so there wasn't much new to see in the film. I thought they did a pretty good job of designing the trolls, though. The human interest was less compelling. There was entirely too much footage of them running through the forest. The 'Christian blood' subplot was a little obvious and failed to invoke either pity or tension. Hans (the eponymous Trollhunter) was done pretty well, but the rest of the cast were uninspiring. The ending was too abrupt.[4]

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Notes:

[1] My best recollection is that it was on one of my labmates' Yahoo page.

[2] This one is in Norwegian, so be prepared to read subtitles.

[3] See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vy2nAOdBUlw.

[4]

There was no good reason for Hans to walk away into the tundra. And there was no good reason why the TSS should show up to confiscate the videotapes at that very moment (when they haven't done so for several days in movie time, even though they've had plenty of opportunity).

Image attributions:

Princess Kidnapped by Trolls was originally painted by John Bauer in 1915 and is now in the public domain, available at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:John Bauer 1915.jpg.