Craig_McPherson

The only takeaway from Troll is that Norwegians are as capable of churning out utter garbage as the rest of the world. The story is nonsense (even for monster movies) and choc-a-bloc with every genre trope in existence. The writers don't even attempt to explain anything beyond "that's the way it was done in the fairytales. Special effects are top shelf, but that's it. Characters are wooden, unlikable and the dialog is horridly bad. Don't waste your time on this as the studio teases a sequel in the closing credits, something for which it is completely unworthy. I've seen my share of giant monster run amok time wasters, this one doesn't even make that very low bar.

I went into this one cold, knowing little. The calamitous collapse of the deep sea drilling station unfolds mere minutes in, and the first half plays out as a pretty tight survival story. Then the creature elements are phased in, equally well. Somewhat derivative of Alien and Aliens, but it works. All in all an under the radar movie that delivers the goods.

I was vaguely familiar with Sobhraj's story so I would have been happy with a formulaic telling. Instead this series sucks you right onto the case. Some might find the flashback/forward layout off-putting at first, but as the story unfolds it's not only important for keeping track, it's bloody brilliant storytelling. You will want to binge this.