Netflix’s Troll Is a Treat for Kaiju Fans

I’ve been looking forward to Troll for a while. I first heard about it a few months ago, and as a huge kaiju fan, I was instantly intrigued. Then, when Netflix dropped an official trailer for the film, my excitement went through the roof. This movie looked amazing, and after finally getting the chance to see it, I’m happy to say that it does not disappoint.

Troll was directed and co-written by Roar Uthaug, and it stars Ine Marie Wilmann, Kim Falck, Mads Sjøgård Pettersen, and Gard B. Eidsvold. As the title suggests, it’s about a giant troll that awakens from its millennium-long slumber in Norway and destroys everything in its path. At first, the country’s government tries to kill the creature with conventional weapons, but when they prove useless, it’s up to a rag-tag group of heroes to find a way to stop it.

If you’re looking for deep, thematically rich storytelling and complex characters who beautifully convey the highs and lows of the human condition, you might as well just stop reading this review right now. Troll is a straight up kaiju romp that favors thrilling adventures and giant monster chaos above all else, so if that’s not your kind of movie, you’re not going to like it.

But if you enjoy fun, style-over-substance kaiju flicks, I think you’re really going to enjoy this one. The titular troll makes its presence felt less than 10 minutes into the film, so even though we still have to wait a little while to see it in all its glory, it dominates the story pretty much right from the get-go.

The first 30 minutes or so are basically just the main characters trying to figure out what’s causing all the chaos, and it’s an absolute blast. Granted, the plot doesn’t entirely make sense, and the characters’ motivations aren’t always entirely clear, but for my money, none of that matters. These characters are just super likable, and I had so much fun seeing them piece together the mystery and slowly learn what’s really going on that the narrative logic (or lack thereof!) didn’t bother me at all.

What’s more, they feel like real people rather than actors reading lines, so it’s really easy to suspend disbelief and completely buy into their story. A few of them also have some fun quirks that make me genuinely want to hang out with them, and there are even a couple of touching character moments that add a bit of humanity to the story as well. It’s just a great group of characters all around, so they more than make up for the hit-or-miss narrative logic.

Then, when the troll itself finally comes to the fore, the movie gets even better. Not only is the creature design super cool, but the monster is also brought to life by some of the best kaiju CGI I’ve ever seen. Seriously, the effects in this film are on par with American giant monster flicks like Pacific Rim and the MonsterVerse movies, so whenever the troll is on screen, it’s a real joy to behold.

And when this creature goes on the attack, it earns a spot among the giant-sized greats. The kaiju chaos here is top-notch, so even though the second and third acts of Troll aren’t all monster action all the time, the times when the creature destruction does take center stage are absolutely captivating.

On top of that, the human elements in the final two acts of the story are also pretty fun. Granted, the film never rises above its stereotypical kaiju plot, but within those bounds, it does a good job of making its human characters a bit more than just glorified excuses to see some monster action.

Not only do the characters continue to be super likable right to the very end, but the movie also puts them on a cool little adventure. It has a fun “disaster film” tone that makes it feel almost like a much better version of the 1998 American Godzilla, so no matter what’s happening at the moment, even when the troll isn’t on screen, there’s always a reason to keep your attention firmly focused on the movie.

All that being said, I did have one big issue with Troll. It’s based on Norwegian mythology, but it puts a bit of a unique spin on its source material. Now, in itself that’s not a bad thing, but one of the more noticeable changes the film makes to the original myths involves the relationship between trolls and the Christian faith. The way I understand it, in those stories the trolls were evil and Christianity was the good force that defeated them, but this movie flips that around completely.

In its retelling of that mythology, the trolls seemed to be good, and the Christians acted like villains because their faith was apparently incompatible with these creatures’ continued existence. However, the film never explains why trolls and Christianity can’t coexist. One of the characters just states it as a fact, but there’s nothing in the Christian faith that’s actually incompatible with the existence of these creatures (in principle, anyway; Christians obviously don’t believe they’re real).

So as a Christian myself, I thought that change to the traditional troll mythology felt like a half-baked cheap shot at my religious beliefs. See, since it doesn’t make much difference to the film’s plot, it’s completely unnecessary. And because it doesn’t really make sense, it also doesn’t add anything of substance to the mythology, so it comes across as an intentional jab at Christianity simply for its own sake. Granted, I can’t say whether the filmmakers behind Troll intended it that way, but that’s what it felt like to me, so it took me out of the movie a bit.

However, like I said, that little point of mythology doesn’t really make much difference to the film’s plot, and the characters don’t harp on it any more than they need to, so it wasn’t nearly enough of an issue to ruin the entire experience for me. I still had an absolute blast watching Troll, and if you’re a fan of fun kaiju action, I think you will too.

Troll is currently streaming on Netflix.