Trolls World Tour

Trolls World Tour is a 2020 American computer-animated jukebox musical film produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by Universal Pictures. The film is a sequel to the 2016 film Trolls, directed by Walt Dohrn with co-direction by David P. Smith, produced by Gina Shay, and written by Jonathan Aibel, Glenn Berger, Elizabeth Tippet, Maya Forbes, and Wallace Wolodarsky, from a story by Aibel and Berger. The film stars Anna Kendrick, Justin Timberlake, James Corden, Kunal Nayyar, Ozzy Osbourne, and Rachel Bloom.

Trolls World Tour was set to be theatrically released in the United States on April 10, 2020. However, due to the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic, the film was released for digital rental on the same day.

Plot
A celebration of the Techno Trolls is crashed by the Rock Trolls, led by Queen Barb. After Barb destroys his DJ station with her guitar's power, King Trollex is forced to surrender the blue string that powers Techno music.

Poppy, still adjusting to her new role as queen, receives a message from Barb that invites all Trolls to a party to unite their music. Her father, King Peppy tells the story of how the Troll tribes became scattered throughout their world Troll Kingdom. The six primary tribes each represented by a different style of music: Pop, Funk, Classical, Techno, Country, and Rock. The music is powered by a magical string kept by the leader of each tribe. Having separated their tribes following discord and disagreement over which style of music was the best, Poppy wants to help Barb unite the different forms of music, but both her father and Branch warn her not to trust Queen Barb's intentions and to accept that the other Trolls are different. Poppy refuses to listen, sending a cheerful reply to Barb via Debbie, Barb's pet bat.

Meanwhile, Barb gloats over her victory of snatching the Techno string, revealing her plan to string an enchanted guitar with all six strings, and play a power chord strong enough to destroy all other music, replacing it with rock.

Wanting to prove herself as a good queen, Poppy travels via air balloon to recruit the other groups of Trolls, Branch joining her in an attempt to express his feelings towards her. Biggie accidentally stows aboard the balloon, having being tempted by cotton candy, and joins them. Meanwhile, Cooper, who feels like the black sheep among the Pop trolls, goes on a journey himself after realizing one of the Troll Tribes looks just like him. He goes into a forest coming upon a herd of monsters, who he thought were trolls like him. He escapes but ends up lost in a desert. He tries to drink from a mirage, but snaps out of it and is abducted by a spaceship wielding magical soap bubbles.

The balloon ends up in the land of Classical Trolls, which, to Poppy's horror, is in ruins. A single small flute named Pennywhistle tells Poppy their town had been decimated by Barb's armada, who captured all the citizens and stole the yellow Classical string. Poppy decides to unite the other Trolls to stop Barb. Branch and Biggie urge her to return home to protect the pink Pop string, but Poppy reveals it hidden in her hair. They then travel to the Country Trolls' land, but after introducing themselves with a loud medley of pop songs, are jailed by an offended Delta Dawn, leader of the Country Trolls.

While in jail, a Country Troll named Hickory, claiming to be moved by Poppy's motives, busts them out, leading to a chase to a ravine. The group flies halfway over the ravine, only to be hanging suspended for just a second, before falling into a river. Branch does not trust Hickory, even when Hickory builds a raft to take the group downstream. The conversation is interrupted by Chaz, a Smooth Jazz Troll hired as a bounty hunter to catch Poppy for Queen Barb, whose music causes Poppy and Branch to fall into a deep hallucination. Hickory incapacitates Chaz, but Biggie decides to return home, declaring that Poppy had broken their previous pinky promise and led them all to danger. Shortly after, the group is abducted by the spaceship that snatched Cooper.

Inside the spaceship, the group discovers the Funk Trolls, and meets up with Cooper, who is revealed to have been the long-lost identical twin of the Funk Troll prince, Prince D. His egg was snatched out of the nest when he and his twin were babies. His parents, King Quincy and Queen Essence, couldn't find him so the Pop Trolls raised him as one of their own. Cooper then tells Poppy he finds comfort in identifying with both Pop and Funk. Quincy and Essence also reveal to Poppy that long ago the original Pop Trolls had attempted to steal the strings and remix the other five music styles into Pop, forcing the other Trolls to each take one string and divide their tribes to save their music. Quincy explains to Poppy that differences are not bad, and trying to make all Trolls the same does not help the problem.

After the Rock Trolls hijack the Funk Trolls' ship to steal the purple Funk String, Cooper ejects the group in bubbles, accidentally separating Hickory from the two. Poppy refuses to return home to their friends, and Branch admonishes her insisting she cannot be a good queen if she is a poor listener, but with his head clouded full of anger, sadness, frustration, confusion, fear, and loss of hope, Branch, in despair, questions their friendship, and the two go their separate ways. Branch is soon captured by both K-Pop and Reggaeton bounty hunters. However, he convinces them to stop capturing and fighting and save Poppy and all music.

Poppy reunites with Hickory, showing him the Pop string. Hickory urges her to return home, but suddenly is revealed to have been a Yodel Troll all along. He and another Yodel Troll, Dickory, who had been hiding within Hickory’s back legs, had been hired to capture her for Barb, but Hickory had a change of heart. Before she can escape, Poppy is then captured personally by Barb, who takes possession of the sixth and final string. Biggie returns home and after seeing it in shambles, feels remorse over abandoning Poppy. He gathers together their remaining friends to go rescue her and Branch, entering the land of the Rock Trolls.

Barb has Poppy imprisoned over a large concert stage where all the captured Trolls are the audience, and admits she empathizes with Poppy's attempts to be a good queen, as she is trying to make rock supreme to prove her own leadership. Barb uses her enchanted guitar to turn Branch and the leaders of the other lands into rock zombies. Poppy seemingly is transformed into a rock zombie when she falls onto the stage, but upon grabbing Barb's guitar, is revealed to have been wearing gumdrop earplugs. She admonishes Barb for being a poor queen by not taking time to listen to her people, and smashes the guitar. While it snaps the possessed trolls out of their rock zombie state, it destroys the strings, ergo stopping the flow of music, taking the trolls’ colors with it.

Cooper hears his heartbeat over a microphone, and creates a rhythmic beat with it, other trolls joining in with clapping, stomping, and other forms of soundmaking, reviving the power of their music, and Poppy encourages everyone to sing together as their colors are restored. Realizing how important other forms of music are, and encouraged by her father Thrash, the repented Barb joins in, regaining her colors, and eagerly accepts Poppy's offer of friendship.

Branch is finally able to profess his love to Poppy who reciprocates his feelings, and everyone performs together, all Trolls finally reunited while celebrating their differences.

In a mid-credits scene, Bridget and King Gristle arrive to the Pop Troll village, unaware of the events that have taken place, and worried they have missed the party.

Cast

 * Anna Kendrick as Queen Poppy, the sweetest, optimistic Queen of the pop Trolls and Branch's girlfriend and love interest.
 * Justin Timberlake as Branch, an over-cautious, good-hearted survivalist pop Troll and Poppy's boyfriend and love interest.
 * James Corden as Biggie, a chubby, friendly pop Troll.
 * Rachel Bloom as Queen Barb, the Queen of the Hard Rock Trolls and Thrash's daughter.
 * Ozzy Osbourne as King Thrash, former King of the Hard Rock Trolls and Barb's father.
 * Anderson Paak as Prince D, a Funk Troll and Quincy and Essence's son.
 * George Clinton as King Quincy, the King of the Funk Trolls.
 * Mary J. Blige as Queen Essence, the Queen of the Funk Trolls.
 * Kelly Clarkson as Delta Dawn, the half-troll half-horse leader of the Country Trolls.
 * Sam Rockwell as Hickory, a Yodel Troll who is disguised as a Country Troll.
 * Icona Pop as Satin and Chenille, fashion Troll twins who are conjoined at their hairs.
 * Ron Funches as Cooper, a giraffe-like troll who walks on all fours.
 * Kunal Nayyar as Guy Diamond, a glittery, silver naked pop Troll with a highly auto-tuned voice.
 * Jamie Dornan as Chaz, a Smooth Jazz Troll.
 * J Balvin as Tresillo, the leader of the Reggaeton Trolls.
 * Kenan Thompson as Tiny Diamond, a Hip-Hop Troll and Guy Diamond's newborn son.
 * Kevin Michael Richardson as Mr. Dinkles, Biggie's pet worm.
 * Walt Dohrn as
 * Smidge, a small female pop Troll with a masculine voice.
 * Cloud Guy, an anthropomorphic cloud
 * King Peppy, Poppy's father and the former King of the pop Trolls. He was previously voiced by Jeffrey Tambor.
 * Fuzzbert, a hair pop troll with legs
 * Additional voices
 * Ester Dean as Legsly, a Pop Troll who can make her legs really long at will.
 * Gustavo Dudamel as Trollzart, a Classical Troll.
 * Anthony Ramos as King Trollex, the King of the Techno Trolls.
 * Flula Borg as Dickory, a Yodel Troll who is inside of the back of Hickory
 * Charlyne Yi as Pennywhistle, a whistle.
 * The McElroy Brothers as Skyscraper
 * Justin McElroy as Techno Beat Drop Button, Tumbleweed.
 * Travis McElroy as Rock Tear
 * Griffin McElroy as Country Tear
 * Red Velvet as the K-Pop Gang:
 * Wendy voices Wani, the leader of the K-Pop Trolls and Tresillo’s rival.
 * Irene voices Baby Bun, Wani’s lieutenant.
 * Seulgi voices Gomdori, Wani’s third in command.
 * Joy voices Ari, the most silent of the K-Pop Trolls.
 * Yeri voices Kim-Petit, Gomdori’s best friend.

ADR Group

 * Carlos Alazraqui
 * Kimberly Bailey
 * Bob Bergen
 * Dave Boat
 * David Jordan Chen
 * Antonio Raul Corbo
 * Debi Derryberry
 * Terri Douglas
 * Keith Ferguson
 * Karen Huie
 * Daniel Kaz
 * Arif S. Kinchen
 * Matt Yang King
 * Jennie Kwan
 * Phil LaMarr
 * Marcella Lentz-Pope
 * Scott Menville
 * Melanie Minichino
 * Capri Oliver
 * Arthur Ortiz
 * Courtney Peldon
 * Maddix Robinson
 * Violet Grace Schaffer
 * Fred Tatasciore
 * Kari Wahlgren
 * Diamond White
 * Jason Linere White
 * Debra Wilson

Production
On February 28, 2017, Universal Pictures and DreamWorks Animation announced a sequel to the 2016 film Trolls, with Anna Kendrick and Justin Timberlake reprising their roles as Poppy and Branch. In March 2017, podcasters the McElroy brothers began campaigning for roles in the film via a podcast titled "The McElroy Brothers Will Be in Trolls 2". Following the campaign's success, DreamWorks confirmed in September 2018 that the McElroy brothers would make cameo appearances in World Tour.

Sam Rockwell, Chance the Rapper, Anthony Ramos, Jamie Dornan and Flula Borg were added to the cast in May 2018. Corden, Stefani, Icona Pop, Funches, and Nayyar returned to reprise their roles. On June 12, 2018, the film was retitled as Trolls World Tour. In October 2018, it was confirmed that Kelly Clarkson had joined the cast, and will perform an original song. In June 2019, along with promotional posters, new cast members have been announced, which include: J Balvin, Mary J. Blige, Rachel Bloom, George Clinton, Ester Dean and Gustavo Dudamel.

Along with Timberlake, Clarkson, Paak, Blige and Clinton, songs are provided by Chris Stapleton and SZA.

The first single from the movie's soundtrack, "The Other Side", by Timberlake and SZA, was released on February 26, 2020. The Trolls World Tour: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack was released on March 13, 2020.

Release
Universal Pictures originally planned to release Trolls World Tour theatrically in the United States on April 10, 2020. It was later pushed up to February 14, 2020 before being moved to April 17, 2020. Following the delay of No Time to Die, it was once again pushed up to the original April 10 release date. It was also set to be released on March 20 in the United Kingdom, but due to the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic, its release date was pushed back to April 6.

On March 16, Universal announced that the film would be released for rental on digital platforms on April 10 in the United States.

Marketing
On June 19, 2019, DreamWorks released 22 character posters for the film, along with promotional film stills. On June 20, the first trailer was released.

A second trailer was released on November 14, 2019. A third trailer was released on March 6, 2020, featuring the new release date.

Reception
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 71% based on 55 reviews with an average rating of 6.1/10. The site's critics consensus reads: "A fun follow-up for fans of the original, Trolls World Tour offers a second helping of colorful animation, infectious energy, and sing-along songs." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 51 out of 100, based on 21 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".