Best movie for a 4yo? Trolls.

Trolls is a movie I never would have imagined I’d look forward to watching, especially considering it deals with a civilization that’s in danger of extinction by consumption from a gigantic monster race and glitter, but it’s great.

Good story, check. Good music, check. Annoying music, uncheck. Has themes you can discuss with your kid for learning purposes, check. Excessively scary, so far un check. It should be scary for a 4yo, but doesn’t seem to be so maybe I’m just a wimp 😉

Trolls straddles that line between good movie and good kid’s-movie with such skillful presentation that… well… it’s just a good movie.

What I’ve found really interesting in repeated watchings of this flick is just how well everything is put together. From the amazingly vivid visual detail of every scene to the love story at the center of the gigantic monster race, nothing’s quite what I’ve come to expect in a kid’s movie, but everything works.

At this point Trolls is not a new movie. I think at the time of the release of it it had been sitting warehoused somewhere as some of the references are a little dated – “YOLO,” being one example.

I think it’s pretty odd that every character in this movie is relatable, and even the bad characters have their fairly well thought out reasons. Explaining why one character became the “bad” troll to save his life was a very interesting conversation. Eventually good characters doing bad things because they didn’t know was also a good talking point.

The soundtrack you can listen to and not feel like you’re listening to a kid’s movie soundtrack except when you get to Poppy’s song, which is still pretty good.

So yeah, as a 44yo with a 4 yo sitting down and thinking about it, that movie has provided more ways to talk to my kid about things than I’d ever have expected. Good job Dreamworks.

Trolls can be watched, streamed, or purchased on DVD, Blu-ray, or 4K UHD at Amazon. Movie’s pretty enough I’m considering a 4K purchase of it.

Or maybe I’ve seen it so many times I’ve become brainwashed.