Trollhunters: Rise of the Titans Review: An Overwhelming But Beautifully Animated Adventure

Release date: July 21, 2021
Running time: 98 minutes
Directed by: Johane Matte, Francisco Ruiz Velasco, Andrew L. Schmidt
Written by: Marc Guggenheim, Dan Hageman, Kevin Hageman
Cast: Emile Hirsch, Lexi Medrano, Charlie Saxton, Kelsey Grammer, Alfred Molina, Steven Yeun, Nick Frost, Colin O'Donoghue, Diego Luna, Tatiana Maslany, Cole Sand, Nick Offerman, Fred Tatasciore, Brian Blessed, Kay Bess, Piotr Michael, James Hong, Tom Kenny, Angel Lin, Amy Landecker, Jonathan Hyde, Bebe Wood, Laraine Newman, Grey Griffin, Cheryl Hines

Following the events of the Tales of Arcadia trilogy, the heroes of Arcadia must band together to protect humanity from the evil Arcane Order, who wield their dark and uncontrollable magic to summon ancient titans that threaten to destroy the world.

Trollhunters continues the story of Acadia and the many characters that were introduced in that trilogy.  If you haven't seen the series, then it shouldn't be a problem as the film does have a recap at the start of what occurred.  It is a brief recap but will give you enough to follow along.  But after that recap you have some beautiful animation to tell this story.  Although the characters have a clean, simple animation style, the film itself has some gorgeous moments.  Especially when the titans are introduced you have some amazing animation and larger than life fights.  And through all this, the film has an extensive and high quality voice cast.  Despite some of the craziness of the film, the voice work is top notch with some funny and relatable characters.  The humor is hit or miss, but it is at least not distracting to hear the voices.  

However, the Tales of Arcadia trilogy had a lot of information that is tough to follow if you haven't been watching the series.  This is my fault for not watching, but for someone without the backstory this is a tough movie to follow.  I imagine this is what happens when someone watches any of the Avengers movies as there are just crazy characters from each film popping in and out.  Imagine watching Avengers: Endgame as your first entry into the Marvel universe.  In Trollhunters, maybe 20 minutes in I had already met a cat wizard, a plant wizard, a giant monster, a nerdy guy with a hammer, a goth wizard, some space person, and someone got pregnant.  And that was maybe a third of the characters you meet.  Additionally, the film is just a jumbled mass of ideas.  Again, this might be because I don't have the backstory but I found it hard to follow along with the mix of traditional mythology, space technology, normal people, and magical entities.  And although the film is rated TV-7, it was a little scarier and more violent than I expected for a kids movie.  Nothing too bad, but not something that I would want to show my young kids.  But all that being said, the movie is a great introduction to sci fi and fantasy concepts for kids.  It kind of hits all the major franchises in one swoop, and my kids ultimately enjoyed it.  

Trollhunters: Rise of Titans continues the Tales of Arcadia trilogy with some beautiful animation and larger than life encounters that will determine the fate of the Trollhunters world.

Rent it.

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Trollhunters: Rise of the Titans is available on Netflix on June 21, 2021.