By MICHAEL GINGOLD
Starring Ine Marie Wilmann, Kim Falck and Mads Sjøgård Pettersen
Directed by Roar Uthaug
Written by Espen Aukan
Netflix
To get the first question out of the way: Yes, the makers of this TROLL 2 are aware of and acknowledge that other one that has become a cult favorite: A couple’s impending child is described as “a little nilbog.” Would that the team behind this sequel, a whole lot of them encoring from the 2022 original, had gone for broke and come up with something equally, entertainingly ridiculous, but instead TROLL 2 2025 stomps its way through a straight-faced scenario with too much generic dialogue and not quite enough creature action.
Ina Marie Wilmann leads the returning cast as Nora Tidemann, the scientist who led the effort to stop the first monster rampage, but has since been dismissed from the government “Troll Commission.” Her ramshackle, cluttered home is visited by government agent Andreas (Kim Falck), and there’s a bit of dialogue that confusingly suggests they’re siblings before she’s whisked off to the Vemork Power Station in the snowy Norwegian mountains. There, another huge beast that was once called Jotun and is now dubbed “Megatroll” is being held in dormant captivity, but of course, there wouldn’t be a movie if it didn’t soon wake up to wreak new havoc. That awakening is essentially the responsibility of Nora herself, but her culpability is one of a few issues the movie sets up but doesn’t follow through on.
Instead, the script by Espen Aukan, from a story by him and director Roar Uthaug, dutifully reunites the other key characters, including former Captain and now Major Kristoffer Holm (Mads Sjøgård Pettersen), Andreas’ techie-nerd girlfriend Sigrid (Karoline Viktoria Sletteng Garvang), who’s expecting their aforementioned baby, and Holm’s fellow soldier Amir (Yusuf Toosh Ibra). Gard B. Eidsvold also reappears in an opening flashback as Nora’s dad, regaling little Nora with a bedtime story describing how centuries ago, the trolls that once co-existed peacefully with humans were persecuted and banished by Olaf the Holy. (The repeated references to “Saint Olaf” in wintry climes may put some viewers inescapably in mind of THE GOLDEN GIRLS or FROZEN, depending on their generation.)
And then there’s a second troll, this one more sympathetic, that arises to serve as a challenger to the one that has torn the roof off a ski resort and eaten some of the guests, among other bad behavior. This WAR OF THE GARGANTUAS-esque conflict, teased in all of TROLL 2’s promotion, seems like it’s supposed to be the key endgame here, but it’s given short shrift. The first clash is over before it starts, and their subsequent big bout isn’t long or inventive enough to fully deliver the goods either. The digital creature effects supervised by Esben Syberg are excellent, and Uthaug builds excitement and awe out of a few other setpieces, but there just aren’t enough of them. Instead, Uthaug harks back to another of his previous movies, the 2018 TOMB RAIDER, spending too much time in the second half with our leads seeking and uncovering Saint Olaf’s burial place. (If one wished to analyze a sociopolitical undertone in TROLL 2, one could note how the Christianization of Norway is cited as starting all the troll trouble from the beginning, while the heroic Amir calls to Allah during a dangerous moment.)
Too much of TROLL 2, in fact, echoes other movies; motifs (objects vibrating from the approaching troll’s footsteps) and entire scenes (that same remote house gets trashed again) are repeated from its predecessor, while a mid-end-credits bit is lifted directly from a certain ’80s remake. The script is sprinkled with self-conscious dialogue like Nora’s “So you’re going to make the same mistakes all over again?” and Andreas’ “Sequels are never any good anyway,” answered with “Everyone loves sequels,” which doesn’t quite take the curse off TROLL 2’s lack of fresh twists on the original concept. Instead, there’s lots of historical exposition, hints at a romance between Major Holm and newly introduced troll project supervisor Marion Rhadani (Sara Khorami) that don’t pay off and a climactic sacrifice that would be more heart-rending if it wasn’t so clearly telegraphed well in advance. Let’s hope for something more figuratively as well as literally groundbreaking if this cinematic monsterverse winds up becoming a, ahem, trollogy.
