Watch Troll on Netflix
Written by: Espen Aukan, Roar Uthaug (story by)
Directed by: Roar Uthaug
Starring: Ine Marie Wilmann, Kim Falck, Mads Sjøgård Pettersen
Rated: TV-14
Watch the trailer
Plot
When an explosion in the Norwegian mountains awakens an ancient troll, officials appoint a fearless paleontologist to stop it from wreaking deadly havoc.
Verdict
Troll is basically a typical disaster movie where the disaster happens to be a troll. So much of this movie feels like something I've seen before. There's the mass destruction, the scientist who knows the answer but no one believes, and the military trying to stop impending disaster in vain. This has a bit of fun with fairy tales that surprisingly are real, but the characters are stereotypes and everything is so easy in this movie for the protagonist that danger never felt real.
Skip it.
Review
Apparently trolls in Norway are a popular fairy tale. This opens with a flashback where Nora's (Ine Marie Wilmann) father Tobias (Gard B. Eidsvold) tells her a fairy tale of trolls turned to stone and trapped in a mountain. With the title of this movie, you can guess where this will go, and it wastes little time introducing the troll.
There's a troll on the loose, but no one knows that yet. Everyone at the site didn't survive, and photos of the event are unclear. Paleontologist Nora, now an adult, is called in for an opinion as government officials try to figure out what happened. I don't know why she was called in, other than she appeared in the opening flashback. Only Nora thinks this event was caused by something humanoid, some kind of giant monster. Everyone at the meeting, like me, wonders why she was even called in and considers her theory ridiculous.
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| Gard B. Eidsvold, Ine Marie Wilmann play Tobias, Nora |
This creature of course is a troll and no one is able to spot him walking across the countryside. Nora and Captain Kris (Mads Sjøgård Pettersen) chase the thing across the countryside and then recruit Nora's father Tobias. He believes trolls are real which is why he lives in the mountains and everyone thinks he's lost it. He gets the last laugh, he was right and this monster is a troll.
Nora and crew use fairy tales to formulate a plan of attack. They're laughed at, but this is after her troll theory was already proven correct. The military attack the troll with missiles, and I don't understand why explosives don't damage him if he's stone. I'm guessing it's plot armor. The troll is provided an interesting backstory, but it feels tacked on. If the movie had explored that more, maybe that could have helped.
Nora develops a plan to stop the troll, but it never felt like they might fail. This wraps up rather easily. There's so little tension throughout the movie. To be a disaster movie, this could have leaned into impending disaster more.
This leaves the door wide open for a sequel which I often don't like, but it's not a terrible offense with this movie after the preceding one hundred minutes.
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