Points Overview and Synopsis

Plot – 3
So i can’t tell you when I’ve ever heard this plot before, making it rather unique. But a unique plot doesn’t alone warrant a above average score. The plot did just what it needed to do and gave our film crew ample reason to follow a man in a line of work he doesn’t want to be in. Simple and clean. Didn’t shine through but it certainly didn’t fail, it gets a 3

Characters- 2.5
So yeah, perfect middle of the road score here, because I realized something. It’s hard for me to judge a character when they aren’t speaking English. I can’t tell their inflections and many of the small things that make me interested in a character are lost. Correlating actions with speech and judging the characteristics of our players becomes difficult when the English language is missing. But at the same time I have a hard time pointing out negatives either. Our lead, the troll hunter, is very likable in his own way but I’m unable to enjoy the little things about his personality. And as a bit of a negative, I couldn’t tell you anything interesting about the camera crew main characters. 2.5 seems fair

Audience Retention – 5
So this movie has slow parts but they are well hidden between spurts of action and this movies own level of suspense. After all we’re dealing with mythical beasts that don’t have any real regulation. And what little wrangling does need to be done is carried out by our lead, the hunter. This leaves us watching a single man tackling problem monsters that can grow to be several hundred times his size. And if the premise wasn’t interesting enough, the pacing is almost brilliant, giving that roller coaster kind of feeling while also just being a fun ride with interesting creatures to observe. I think very few people could walk out in the middle of this movie comfortably. 5 stars.

Re-watch-ability – 4
Biased opinion on this one. Honestly I can see why people wouldn’t want to watch this movie too many times but I just had too muc fun with it. It’s a good film, doesn’t take itself too seriously, I can take it as an action flick, a suspenseful film, a social commentary on the governments funding policies (and I think most nations could relate), or just fun bullshit i can put on the TV while I’m writing an article on WHP. And yeah, it’s playing right now. I feel like a four from me is a fine score.

WAS I ENTERTAINED – 5
I don’t think I need to say anything more after the shining scores I already gave it. I was thoroughly entertained. And the fact that I love the sound of Norwegian probably doesn’t fix any potential bias. Even if you just see it once, I guarantee you won’t be grumpy about the experience.

And I didn’t really get a chance to talk about the other cool things this movie brings to the table. Not the least of which being the interesting and sometimes derpy cute design of the monsters in this film. Of coarse I think they were trying to go with a semi traditional depiction of Norwegian trolls,though I can’t be certain without doing some reading and research. I can imagine though that if anyone thought in their head what a troll might look like, I’m certain you’d come up with something that at least resembles these beings. And as much of a advocate for practical effects as I am, I have to admit the CGI use in this film was easily accepted and didn’t take away from my enjoyment in the slightest. Now of coarse I saw plenty of issues with the same CGI, mostly having to do with shadows and smooth movement.

You see CGI and life have a few very noticeable differences that make it very hard to seamlessly work along side things that were not generated by computer. One of those things is the smoothness of the movements and the speed at which they move. Every now and then, you can tell that the speed doesn’t quite match up with the rest of the movie, a few actions are taking place a bit too fast. And of coarse the smoothness of things generated by computer is very easily noticed, and a tad hard to quantify. Still, with these small issues I found myself very much enjoying the creatures and wishing to have seen a bit more of them.

And you might notice I’m not talking too much about the story here. Well, that’s because I already explained the entire synopsis. And of coarse, you’ll say “But horror movie guy, you gave me one sentence saying some camera crew wanted to film a hunter of trolls.”

Yeah. That’s about it. And that’s not a bad thing! Some great movies were created on a far more simple premise. Even if the movie doesn’t draw an exact map to the final destination (or, indeed, isn’t sure WHERE that is), you can still enjoy the journey. And I am almost completely certain that you will.

Ladies and Gents thank you so much for reading, and I hope you enjoy this film as much as I did. Watch with friends, drunk friends are better, and if you can find a Norwegian drunk friend to watch this with I recommend you do this before you do anything else in your life. Call in from work. Do it.

See you next time.