“There’s a trace of truth in all fairy tales,” a character says in the trailer for Troll—a concept which on its own is quite enough to get my attention. But this trailer already had it. If you were to cross the Finnish delight Rare Exports with a Godzilla or King Kong story, you might get something like Troll, in which a creature very big and possibly entirely made of rocks comes out of the mountains, much to humanity’s dismay.
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As in Rare Exports, the creature of myth and legend is woken by an explosion; as in any number of kaiju and giant ape tales, he is very, very, very large. The moment in this trailer when the looming rock behind our heroes (one of whom is described delightfully as a “fearless paleontologist”) pops open an eye? That’s good. But so is the fact that there’s clearly a sense of humor amid all the rocky chaos and destruction.
Norwegian director Roar Uthaug also directed 2018’s enjoyable Tomb Raider, which showed he has a solid hand with an action sequence, and 2015’s The Wave, which is about a geologist and a massive tsunami. Anyone who’s this into making scientists the stars of his films is cool in my book.
And also, trolls! Giant trolls! What’s not to love? Personally I may be rooting for nature to win this one, but that paleontologist (Ine Marie Wilmann) is very charming.
Troll comes to Netflix on December 1st. Get the aquavit ready.
