Animation film “Trolls Band Together” is shiny and colorful just like its two predecessors. I was not particularly excited about “Trolls” (2016) and “Trolls World Tour” (2020), but they were fairly watchable mainly thanks to its bright optimistic energy mainly fueled by its cute animation style and spirited musical numbers, and the same thing can be said about “Trolls Band Together”.

After the prologue scene showing a hidden past of Branch (voiced by Justin Timberlake), the story begins with he and many other cute Trolls including Poppy (voiced by Anna Kendrick) cheerfully preparing for the wedding of Poppy’s best Bergen friend Bridget (voiced by Zooey Deschanel) while singing a lot as expected. Poppy is quite excited to assist Bridget and her groom along with Branch, but then there comes an unexpected intrusion in the middle of the wedding of ceremony via John Dory (voiced by Eric André), one of several older brothers in Branch’s past. As shown from the prologue scene, Branch and his several older brothers were the members of a hot band called “BroZone”, and John Dory needs Branch’s help right night for rescuing one of their brothers as soon as possible.

That brother in question is Floyd (voiced by Troye Sivan), who was incidentally the closest brother to Branch during that good old time of theirs. He is currently captured by two Mount Rageon siblings Velvet (voiced by Amy Schumer) and Veneer (voiced by Andrew Rannells), and these two siblings, who incidentally cannot sing that well, have cruelly sucked Floyd’s singing energy for making them into the most popular pop stars in their land. Not so surprisingly, Floyd is getting weaker as being more and more exploited by Velvet and Veneer, and he certainly needs to be rescued before it eventually becomes too late for him.  

Despite a long period of estrangement between him and his older brothers, Branch is willing to help his oldest brother as much as possible, but there are two problems to handle for them. First, they need to locate two other brothers, and, above all, they all should be able to generate together a certain joint spirit absolutely necessary for saving Floyd from where he is being imprisoned at present.

What follows next is a bumpy journey outside Poppy and Branch’s area. As they ride a big (and colorful, of course) living vehicle belonging to John Dory, it does not take much time for them to locate Branch’s two other brothers, but, as many of you already guessed, they have to persuade these two brothers to accompany John Dory and Branch in spite of these two brothers’ understandable reluctance. Although the four brothers eventually work and prepare together, they soon come to clash with each other as before, even while knowing well that they must band together right now for saving Floyd.

In addition, the film serves us two small subplots respectively associated with Bridget and Poppy. While it shows how Bridget enjoys her honeymoon on the road along with her dear husband, it also focuses on Poppy’s unexpected encounter with a certain Troll character who has led a little community of Trolls which turns out to be more aggressive than expected. When she comes to discover that this Troll character was actually quite close to her a long time ago, Poppy is surprised but delighted for that, though there soon comes a little personal conflict between them later in the story.

Meanwhile, we also get a series of big musical numbers as expected, and I must say that “Trolls Band Together” is often entertaining as your typical jukebox musical film. The parts of several recognizable songs are seamlessly incorporated into some of the musical sequences in the film, and I was particularly delighted by a joyful moment featuring that classic Oscar-nominated song by Dolly Parton. In case of two original songs, one of them is performed by NSYNC for its old connection with Justin Timberlake, and there is even a little joke associated with the name of this band around the end of the film.

Furthermore, director Walt Dohrn and his crew members make sure that their overall result looks shiny and colorful as much as possible. As your typical eye-candy, “Trolls World Tour” will certainly be quite a sweet fun for many young audiences out there, and I am sure that the two little daughters of a colleague of mine will savor its every bright and colorful moment.

The voice cast members of the film are effective in their voice acting. Timberlake complements well Anna Kendrick’s irrepressibly plucky spirit, and they are supported well by a bunch of notable cast members such as Kenan Thompson, Eric André, Daveed Diggs, Kid Cudi, Troye Sivan, Camila Cabello, and Zooey Deschanel. As the villains of the story, Amy Schumer and Andrew Rannells often go over the top to our little amusement, and Zosia Mamet has her own small moment to shine as Velvet and Veneer’s long-suffering assistant.

On the whole, “Trolls Band Together” simply follows the formula set by its two predecessors without advancing further from that, but you will not probably complain at all if you were charmed by its predecessors more than I was. Considering that it does not surpass its two predecessors much, I give it only 2.5 stars just like I did in case of its two predecessors, but I will not deny that I enjoyed it at times, so I will let you decide where you will spend your spare time on this mostly solid product.