It's by no means a terrible film. Some parts of it are pretty good but I can't help but think that the critical acclaim it's had is another “Emperors New Clothes” style cluster fuck where after a couple of the reputable movie reviewers and publications said it was the best film in the world, the rest of the movie press was frightened that if they didn't say exactly the same thing, they might get laughed at. This, in my humble opinion, is what happened with The Dark Knight. Saw plenty of 5 star reviews but I've not met many actual real people who like that massive mess.
The film plays out documentary style and follows a group of student film makers who decide to investigate a man who they believe to be an illegal bear poacher. It soon transpires though, that he's an elite secret government operative charged with controlling Norway's troll population. They end up following him halfway across the country to document all his encounters with these massive creatures that populate the more remote mountainous and woodland areas of Norway's wilderness.
THE GOOD:
It's well directed and the locations they shot the film in are magnificent. The vast landscapes we see filmed from the moving car during the first 20 minutes or so while the film crew follow the Troll hunter around the countryside trying to discover exactly what it is he's up to really do look like the kind of place a 20 foot tall monster could hide. I thought this helped to create a sense of apprehension very well.
The first time a troll appears on screen after a well paced build up is genuinely exciting and I was surprised by just how big the first troll the film throws at you was. I can't fault the special effects at all. It's definitely some of the best CGI I've seen to date. The trolls themselves look great and blend in seamlessly with the rugged scenery of the film as they smash their way through trees and grab billy goats off of bridges. It's this standard of visuals and sound that make me glad I spent so much on the TV and sound system I've got.
Parts of it were also quite funny. The scenes where the people in charge of making evidence of troll activity look like something caused by a bear, went to work did make me laugh out loud. Leaving the dead bodies of the wrong breed of bear for that region that they'd taken from a zoo and making bear tracks with the left and right paws on the wrong feet.
THE BAD:
Turns out you don't kill trolls with guns and grenades and missile launchers like you'd expect, you kill them with torches. If they have to have a specific weakness then fair enough but for God's sake no one so much as fires a freaking gun at a troll even once. You can call me shallow if you want but Aliens? Critters? Tremors? Deep Rising? Jurassic Park? Did they fight the creatures in these thoroughly entertaining monster movies with torches? Hell no, they shot and blew the shit out of them with an array of explosives and massive guns. This is how it's done.
Also turns out that Trolls don't kill people that much either. I'm serious, only one person dies at the hands of a troll in the whole pissing film and even then you don't see what happens to him. I'm not saying that the film should have been a blood bath but as all the films I mentioned in the above paragraph demonstrated very well, if you want an audience to be afraid of something, you have to show them that it's dangerous and given half a chance it'll kill people. Not only did the creatures in this film not seem to pose much of a threat unless you're a goat or a tree but half of them were too stupid to even notice the people filming them from 5 yards away anyway. Avoiding a troll looks about as perilous as crossing a busy main road. I can't understand for the life of me why it was given a 15 certificate.
Film's shot in this style don't usually come populated with a cast of fantastic characters played by brilliant actors that you grow to love as the film goes on, take The Blair Witch Project and Diary Of The Dead for instance, but this film had about the most wooden bunch space wasters I've ever seen in a film. I didn't hate any of them because none of them had personalities. I just didn't feel anything for any of them one way or the other. This detracted even more from the one killing in the film because the character who dies was so 2 dimensional and boring, I didn't even know what his name was.
I even watched it in the original audio with the subtitles on because I always find watching foreign films with the English dub makes them sound cheesy and ruins the characters but that didn't make any of them seem any less toss.
Then there's the lack of action. The trailer makes it look like pretty much all that happens is people running around shouting with trolls chasing after them but in fact there's very little action at all. The majority of it is just people standing around in the wet, complaining about the smell of what they just smeared all over themselves and as I've said the lack of any real sense of peril just makes the few bits where a troll does come after the cast a bit pointless.
I watched it with 2 friends and towards the end we'd pretty much lost interest and started talking amongst ourselves while we waited for it to end. They both described the film as “complete shit” once it was finished but I won't go that far because it was a bold idea for a film, the first half an hour is very good and the special effects were impressive but apart from that it really doesn't have much going for it. It's basically just a Hollywood style block buster with a massive budget but no substance that came from another country.
Seems like every time a foreign film comes out with half decent production values, like Night Watch and Day Watch which were both wank by the way, critics are falling over themselves to heap praise on them, kind of like saying well done to the retarded or fat kid at school when he comes last in a race because “bless him” he's trying.
Before anyone says I just didn't like it because it was in another language, I love foreign films. Old Boy, Frontiers and Akira are some of my favourite films of all time. I just know a well polished turd when I see one. Maybe rent it but don't buy.
5/10
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