Troll is a Roland Emmerich styled disaster movie, directed by Roar Uthaug, that also plays like a variation on the Kong, Godzilla and even Jurassic Park movies. It features a breakthrough performance from actress Ine Marie Wilmann, which should lead to more international rules for her.
Roar Uthaug is a talented Norwegian action director. In 2015 he made the spectacular disaster movie The Wave (2015) and in 2018 he directed Alicia Vikander in the mostly successful Tomb Raider reboot.
Together with Espen Aukan he wrote the script for Troll, which tells the story of something gigantic, that awakens after being trapped for a thousand years deep inside the mountain of Dovre, Norway.
The creature destroys everything in its path, and then heads in the direction of Oslo, the capital of Norway, with both the military and ordinary citizens struggling to stop something they thought existed only in Norwegian folklore.
Nora Tidemann (Ine Marie Wilmann) is a paleobiologist who is called in to help the rescue mission. Together with the prime minister’s adviser Andreas Isaksen (Kim Falck) and Kapitein Kristoffer Holm (Mads Sjogard Pettersen) she faces an almost impossible task.
There is also a rather touching father-daughter story, concerning Nora’s washed up father Tobias (Gard B. Eidsvold), which fits nicely into the plot and ups the emotional stakes considerably.
Another star of the movie is Troll himself. The special effects team have done a fine job and the path of his destruction looks very convincing too.
Some of the human scenes are a bit hit and miss, mainly because we’ve seen them before. Scene in underground command center? Check. Scene in helicopter surveying the landscape? Check.
But there is always Wilmann, who exudes intelligence and emotion in equal measures and dominates every scene that she is in.
Okay, Troll would probably struggle if it had to compete theatrically with the King Kong, Godzilla or Jurassic Park movies, but as a big time small screen event movie it is pretty great. Yes, some scenes border on the absurd, but does anyone going in expect a serious drama?
Even with some flaws, the spectacle is definitely on the screen.
Seems unfair to keep comparing this to Kong/Godzilla/Jurassic Park... Kong: Skull Island and Godzilla Vs. Kong were absolute trashhouses and the less said about how the Jurassic Park reboots fell off a cliff the better.