Trollhunter [2010]

Trollhunter was a fine concept – but unfortunately it was the narrative structure that they chose for the film that was their downfall. College film students decided to follow a suspected bear poacher – and soon discover that he’s not a poacher at all – he hunts trolls. I thought that with the whole cinema verite style that they chose to tell the tale – was a good choice – but ONLY if they wanted to stay within that realm and not venture off that path. I don’t know many documentaries where instead of shooting what they were out to shoot – they relied so heavily on showing reaction shots of the filmmakers. When there’s a troll coming your way – and it’s never been filmed – and you’ve got a big huge motherfucking amazing story to show the world – something that exposes and causes doubt in everything as a society we all believe – why do you turn the camera away from it in order to see the sound girl gawking? SPOILER: With about 30 minutes left in the film they bring on a new character – essentially to replace one of the other characters – this whole thing broke my suspension of disbelief – they are no longer student doing a documentary but now something entirely different. Students are still students – and to replace a character like that doesn’t make any sense using the narrative structure they chose.

Otherwise – it was an all right film – like I said I liked the concept of it all – but if they would have just dropped the cinema verite structure and made it a straightforward film – it would have been much better. Neat effects.