Blu-ray + DVD: Trolls: Party Edition – R1
Lovable and friendly, the trolls love to play around. But one day, a mysterious giant shows up to end the party.
Trolls is an insanely colorful movie and its palette is its most obviously defining asset. The movie was made to sparkle — quite literally, in some instances — with a barrage of bling, abundantly bold primaries, and all sorts of nifty little nuanced and aggressive shades of purple, orange, or practically any color under the rainbow. Color diversity is a strength, at least around the trolls. The Bergens are more flatly colored, almost a monstrous vomit-colored green with various earthy support shades around. No matter the place or the color, the Blu-ray delivers it all with abundant definition and pop. Detailing is good, too, presenting all the little textural nuances on troll hair and flesh, and on Bergens, for that matter, with practically as much complexity as the source material has to offer. Image clarity is outstanding, and elements near and far alike reveal superb attention to detail. A bit of aliasing is evident throughout, admittedly in scant quantities and often hard to spot but dense enough that videophiles may be bothered. The target audience, won’t care, however. The Blu-ray delivers everything they could want in a picture, and then some.
Fox/DreamWorks have pulled a Sony with this release of Trolls, failing to offer the top soundtrack on the Blu-ray and instead saving it for the UHD release. As it is, the included DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 lossless soundtrack is fine, perhaps not quite so dynamic and seamless as it might have been but never wanting for more precision or clarity. Spacing is excellent. The stage opens up with effortless width and depth alike, presenting all of the music — whether more intimate slow songs or spunky Pop beats — with incredible stage saturation, spacing, surround envelopment, and when necessary (which is often), low end depth. Bass can be significant in music and action alike, with various sounds proving substantially impactful during the most treacherous moments in the battle between Trolls and Bergens. Subtle environmental atmospherics are pleasantly involved though often relegated to far background duty. The film is very dialogue-heavy outside of music and a few action scenes. The spoken word is presented clearly and with perfect prioritization from the front-center channel.
