For parents, there are two types of children’s movies, those that you’ll put on and happily watch with your child, and those that you’ll put on and happily let your child watch while you do literally anything else. Trolls Band Together fits in the former category. And that’s okay, because kids need content to watch so we parents can do the laundry, am I right?  

The third installment in what is now a Trolls trilogy, Trolls Band Together starts a month after Trolls World Tour’s ending. Our protagonists Poppy (Anna Kendrick) and Branch (Justin Timberlake) are now officially dating! Which I guess is a win for those Brappy shippers out there! But the course of true love never did run smooth, and our troll protagonists are no exception to the rule. It turns out Branch has a secret past; he was in a boy band called Brozone when he was – literally – in diapers, and his bandmates were his secret older brothers! Not even Poppy knows Branch has siblings! Unfortunately, the brothers had a falling out after a disastrous performance and decided to go their separate ways…until now. But this secret isn’t really that noteworthy, because, as the movie later demonstrates, basically everyone in the Trolls Univers has a secret brother or sister… 

The inciting force of Trolls Band Togther occurs when Branch’s secret brother Floyd is kidnapped and held hostage by two pop stars named Velvet (Amy Schumer) and Veneer (Andrew Rannells). Tone deaf but fame-hungry, Velvet and Veneer imprison Floyd so they can siphon talent from him (seriously, they are somehow able to extract his singing ability from his body). To save their sib, Branch’s family reunites. But can this – literal – band of brothers free Floyd from the diamond cage in which he is kept? Well, the answer is that they can, but only if they achieve “the perfect family harmony.” That “perfect family harmony” is conveniently capable of piercing diamonds!

If it’s not already apparent from the plot summary (or the title of this review), Trolls Band Together isn’t high art. Trolls is theoretically a musical, but the soundtrack is full of uncreative mashups of pop songs like “We Are Family” – class songs that are massively underserved by this shoddy movie. Oh, and the animation is so poor it makes you truly appreciate the hundreds of millions of dollars Pixar invests in making its films beautiful! While that expenditure might infuriate Disney investors, viewers like me truly appreciate it. Keep those Pixar budgets high, Bob Iger, because Trolls Band Together looks like someone vomited their leftover Halloween candy all over the screen – it may be colourful, but it is not appealing. It’s time to up your game, Dreamworks Animation! 

Admittedly, I laughed when I heard some of Brozone’s song titles, which include “Baby, Baby Girl, Woman;” however, a child-friendly Horeacean satire of boy bands is not what the world needs in the wake of Britney Spears’ memoir, The Woman In Me, which puts Timberlake’s misogyny and casual racism on full display. Should we be affectionately poking fun at the more endearing aspects of classic boybands when we know exactly how pernicious their cultures, in fact, were? This Britney fan says no!

By entering “boyband territory,” the latest Trolls also serves as a feeble white-washing of Timberlake’s past, and I’m simply not here for it. While I value peace and quiet as much as the next parent, this is a film I’ll put on when my daughter requests it and quickly leave the room. I’d rather do eight loads of laundry than watch this film one more time!