A friend recommended I watch this movie and I was so optimistic about watching it but in the end, I was impressed. It was a fantastic experience for me. This is my first time watching a movie that is not produced by Hollywood and I must say I want more from the director. This movie is based on folklore which is the kind of movie I love. Folklore-inspired movies are always thrilling for me. This movie just reminds me of the Jurassic Park franchise and Hong Kong.
Troll is a Norwegian film distributed by Netflix and released in December 2022. This movie was directed by Roar Uthaug and starred Ine Marie Wilmann, Kim Falck, Mads Sjøgård Pettersen, and Gard B. Eidsvold. Troll is about a Norwegian folklore, where an ancient Troll that was awakened in a Norwegian mountain wreck havoc all over Norway cities including the capital in search of his kind.
The movie started with some miners exploring the mountains of Norway and while at it, some citizens were at the site protesting that the mountains should be left alone and not be explored by the miners. So in the process of exploring the mountains, the miner accidentally awakened an ancient monster who came out furious, killing the miners and the protesters. This caused the Norwegian government to be concerned about the safety of their country and its citizens. So they invited a paleontologist, Nora Tidemann to work with the military to put an end to the uprising chaos about to happen.
After seeing the coverage evidence clip from the mining site incident, Nora goes to look for her father, a folklore expert who lost his job for his belief in the existence of folklore creatures like Trolls. She was accompanied by Kris, a captain, and Andreas, assistant to the prime minister to her father's cottage deep in the valley close to the mining site where the monster was encountered for the first time.
As they all went in search of the monster that destroyed the mining site, they encountered the monster and discovered it was a Troll. From there, the thrill of the movie began. Not to write too many spoilers, I will stop here.
My Review.
At first, I didn't want to watch this since it is a Norwegian film but after my friend who recommended the movie said it is based on a Norwegian folklore, I immediately went for it without watching the thriller. It was a fantastic experience for me because this movie contains; fantasy, thriller, action, adventure, and Drama. All these genres were not mistaken for another but they were well portrayed respectively. There are lots of mixed reactions from the audience who saw this movie, but I will just talk about the positives and negatives that I saw in this movie.
Positives
The visual representation of this movie was amazing. I loved it as it gave me the feeling that I was watching a Hong Kong movie. The Troll was designed excellently and the action scenes of the Troll were shot so well that one wouldn't think that CGI wasn't involved in the making. It was a good monster flick and the Troll was represented well.
Also, let's not forget the mysterious reveal of the troll. At the beginning of the movie, there was suspense as to what the monster looked like and what it was, but then after the monster was revealed it got intense with the destruction it left in its path. But this part of the mystery and suspense was ruined for many people because they watched the trailer. So it looks like they have seen it all already.
Action scenes of these movies were captured well with help of close-range shots and rear-angle shots which made the whole action scenes crazy, intense, and believable.
The plot was supposed to be bad, but then the backstory of the Troll spiced up the whole thing. As the movie began, we got introduced to the Norwegian folklore the movie is based on, and then little by little, we got to know the monster, why it is in a destructive mode and the reason behind this behavior. Though for me I would love to see more about the Trolls minus the human actors. At the end of the movie, we were given a credit scene that told us there might be a sequel and more of the Troll. I hope it is in the works already.
Negatives
The resolution of this movie was rushed as they couldn't cover all the vital background stories introduced to the audience in the plot of the movie. There were a lot of potholes in the plot. For example; Why were miners digging through a mountain and what were they looking for? Why was the paleontologist (Nora) called for help when they didn't believe it was a creature? There were a lot of mix-ups there and the stories were not synchronized well.
The actors /characters were a big flaw in this movie as their performances seemed insignificant to the story of the movie. The characters had no rich background stories. They didn't give us connections with the characters and the government of Norway was represented as dumb, insensitive, and myopic minds leaders which was very disappointing to me. Let's not also forget about the humor they added to this movie. It was dry and cringe because it didn't make me laugh at all.
My Rating.
Overall, this movie is a good and fast watch since the duration is just 1hr 40mins. It was a good experience for me, I enjoyed it and it wasn't as bad as many people may think it is. Also probably I might have enjoyed it more if I hadn't watched the subtitles version.
Rating this movie 3.5 stars out of 5 stars. I would recommend this movie to monster flick lovers. If you haven't watched it, hurry and watch it now. This is the first Norwegian movie I enjoyed.
All images above are screenshots from the movie
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