Troll

I found this movie to be entertaining. It reminded me of Trollhunter, another movie on the same subject, but which was perhaps smaller in scale as it involved a small group of troll hunters rather than the entire government of Norway and its military. When it comes to science fiction or fantasy I tend to give more slack for the writing and I found this to be fairly well written and well acted. There were a few clichés about government leaning on the military as their first and only response to a crisis, but in an odd way it is a relief that it is some country besides the United States being portrayed as doing that.

I thought the special effects of the creature and the scenes of destruction were pretty good, though I do not profess to be...

There's nothing very original about this, but it's got some likeable characters and really solid special effects. The explosions and fire of the military's offensive against the giant troll being the most impressive.

Watched for the first time in preparation for TROLL 2.

Rating: B

I've always appreciated how Roar Uthaug manages to ground high-concept disasters in human emotion, so I went into TROLL hoping for that same balance applied to folklore. What we get is undeniably a patchwork of Hollywood's monster movie tropes you can feel the DNA of GODZILLA and KING KONG in almost every beat but Uthaug elevates the material through a distinct Norwegian atmosphere. While the narrative is formulaic and the supporting characters often fall into the trap of making frustratingly dumb decisions, the visuals are genuinely spectacular, delivering a tangible sense of scale and weight to the creature that puts many significantly more expensive blockbusters to ...