Aside from the anomaly that was Tomb Raider, director Roar Uthaug’s filmography has been a diverse and sturdy array. Whether The Wave’s fjord disaster, Cold Prey’s Jotunheimen lodge slasher or Escape’s historical pursuit thriller, all have been taut character-driven riffs on familiar genre formulas, and the director’s latest follows suit. Troll – no relation to 2010’s Troll Hunter, even though they’d make an ideal double feature – is a rock-solid giant monster flick that hits all the beats one would expect…and also basically Godzilla 1998 with a Norwegian folklore twist and a welcome dollop of heart.
Uthaug effectively applies his approach towards The Wave to another genre: a template often reduced to pure spectacle by Hollywood given an earnest family angle as the dramatic foundations, enhanced by punching-above-its-weight-class VFX. Opening with a father and daughter high in the Dovre mountains, sharing recollections of fairy tales, immediately lets the audience know what the focus of this monster movie is. Fast-forward years later, Nora Tidemann (Ine Marie Wilmann) is a paleontologist summoned to a secret government council, because…something has been awakened by dynamiting deep within the mountain. Something leaving giant footprints in the earth (one Godzilla ‘98 nod of many), something that requires the help of her estranged myth-obsessed father (Godzilla 2014 nod, among others).
One could make a drinking game out of scenes homaging other films: the helicopter smashing of Skull Island, the parent-child dynamic of Godzilla ‘14, the bureaucratic red tape and underdog teamwork of Shin Godzilla. Once the towering stone behemoth rises, Troll rarely deviates from the blueprint those films and their ilk have provided the genre. Hasty trigger-happy leaders firing salvos of tank artillery and combined arms upon the being? Stomping and smashing through buildings? An underdog team racing to stop the rampage before the military enacts an even worse option? All accounted for throughout an occasionally slack runtime. On one hand, even the most casual viewer of the kaiju genre has basically seen Troll before, and could probably predict every major moment before it happens. Even the classic trope of landmarks getting smashed rears its head, although the Norwegian equivalent being its humble Hunderfossen Adventure Park makes that sequence feel fresh and unique again.
On the other hand though, Uthaug embraces that familiarity to indulge the inherent fun of unleashing a giant monster on Oslo. Directed with confident craftsmanship, this is a breezy adventure with a crew of quirky heroes to root for (even if those heroes aren’t much more than walking personality traits) and thrilling-albeit-few set-pieces. The supernatural nature of the lumbering threat allows for a modern-technology-versus-fantasy-lore angle that gives way to clever sight gags and less than clever deus-ex-machina reveals by the final act. Even if the script is lacking and effectively entirely clichés, the CG creation of the title is an impressive feat, equally menacing and sympathetic; in terms of detail and expressions, the titular troll fits right alongside his giant monster contemporaries.
Much like how The Wave compared to other disaster films, one can find this subgenre done bigger, crazier, darker by Hollywood and other countries. Despite Roar Uthaug lightly exploring themes of colonialism and environmentalism, don’t expect this angry troll to be a metaphor or allegory. No, Troll is just a low-key high-craft meat-&-potatoes addition to the kaiju canon and sometimes that’s all a movie needs to entertain, rocky warts and all.
Photo courtesy of Netflix
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