Trolls World Tour (PG)
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Caution: spoilers.

This is the firs sequel to Trolls. I found it somewhat less funny and fun than the first movie, but I still liked it, particularly the movie's metaphorical message.

We learn some new backstory for the trolls in this movie: there are in fact six different tribes of trolls. The one we met in the first movie are Pop trolls, and the others are Rock, Techno, Funk, Classical, and Country trolls. Once they were all united, but at some point in history they each took one of six magical strings from a lyre and went their separate ways. Now Queen Barb (Rachel Bloom) wants to obtain all six strings and unite all trolls under Rock. Poppy believes all Trolls are the same, which immediately led me to think of colorblind ideology in the real world, so I hoped Poppy would eventually learn she was wrong, and that we should not ignore but rather celebrate our differences. And of course she does learn that by the end of the movie, so that made me happy. I'm still not sure the movie made the lesson explicit enough, especially considering most of the music in the movie is still pop. But it's not a bad metaphor for different cultures. (And of course music is a part of any culture.)

What else can I say? There were several trolls in the first movie that I never mentioned specifically, some of whom are more important in this movie. There's Biggie (James Corden) and his little pet worm Mr. Dinkles, who accidentally stow away with Poppy and Branch when they go to confront Barb and try to stop her from taking over the world and turning everyone into Rock trolls. And there's a giraffe-like troll named Cooper who goes off looking for other trolls who look like him, and ends up finding his family among one of the other tribes. There's a glittery troll named Guy Diamond who sort of gives birth to a baby troll called Tiny Diamond (who emerges from Guy's hair). And Poppy and her friends meet various new trolls from other tribes throughout their journey, as well as being hunted by bounty hunters sent by Queen Barb. They include a Smooth Jazz troll, some K-pop trolls, some Reggaeton trolls, and Yodeler trolls. Poppy and her friends receive some help from a Country troll named Hickory, though there's a surprise twist concerning him that I don't want to spoil.

Anyway... I don't think all the different musical genres are as well represented in the movie as they should have been. (And there are countless genres that aren't even mentioned.) But of course our heroes learn their lesson in the end and save the world, and everything. Oh, and throughout the movie Branch struggles with his desire to tell Poppy that he loves her. Also there are several famous musicians voicing various new characters. And I can't think of anything else to say right now, but I'm probably forgetting things. And there's a subsequent web series called "TrollsTopia" which I plan on watching sometime. (There was previously a series called "The Beat Goes On!" which I didn't get to see because it was on Netflix, but the newer series is on Hulu.)