Troll 2 Parents Guide

Troll 2 is rated TV-14 rating because the MPA classifies its content as containing fear and violence mostly from its creepy goblin attacks, unsettling transformations, and scenes meant to frighten rather than harm in a realistic way.

“Troll 2,” follow-up to Norway’s widely enjoyed 2022 giant-monster spectacle, ambles along with too little urgency and far too little creature-driven mayhem to really earn its place. Like the first film, it reaches for the Amblin-flavored, all-ages adventure pattern that Spielberg and his collaborators refined into a kind of cinematic shorthand and it mimics that approach competently enough. But competence only takes a movie so far, and this one seldom arrives anywhere truly stirring.

What ultimately separates “Troll 2” from its predecessor is the thinness of its incident. The original at least trafficked in found-family banter and tidy character beats; this sequel barely musters enough prepackaged drama or humor to feel eventful. Once again we follow Nora Tidemann (Ine Marie Wilmann), fallen from grace as the nation’s troll expert, as she joins a government team in pursuit of a colossal troll and that creature’s estranged offspring. There are confrontations, yes, but the movie never stages them with enough vitality to make you lean forward. Even the polished, respectable visual effects don’t quite compensate for a sense of narrative starvation. The human story doesn’t fare better though it’s not so dull that you ever give up hope that it might turn into something.

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The trouble is that enjoying “Troll 2” depends on enjoying Nora and the people around her. And to be fair, the cast brings an easy charm to their archetypes; you can feel the actors trying to fill in blanks the screenplay doesn’t bother with. Yet the film is hobbled by its relentlessly generic dialogue. Everyone speaks with the same mild, interchangeable voice a problem that becomes especially obvious once Nora is recruited yet again to help the government tinker with the magical troll Jotun, or “Megatroll,” as Andreas (Kim Falck) has affectionately rebranded him.

Andreas, a sweetly overeager bureaucratic nerd, serves as one of Nora’s foils. His devotion to Jotun is matched only by his devotion to the pop-culture quips he trades with his pregnant wife Sigrid (Karoline Viktoria Sletteng Garvang). Their references, including an eye-rolling nod to “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan,” are meant to humanize them but mostly remind you how thin the characterization is. Andreas’s exuberance is theoretically counterbalanced by Marion (Sara Khorami), the hard-nosed project supervisor who dismisses Nora at first for being too trusting. But Marion’s skepticism evaporates almost instantly once Captain Kris (Mads Sjøgård Pettersen) begins flirting with her a plot thread that produces neither chemistry nor conflict, partly because the movie doesn’t seem all that committed to the stock behavior it introduces.

This is, in essence, a film populated by characters who are simply too agreeable for the kind of sequel that promises to escalate stakes. Andreas and Sigrid’s impending child barely figures into the story. Marion’s doubts about Nora’s troll-sympathetic stance fizzle out before they can matter. Even Nora’s reflections on her father whose passion for troll folklore shaped her childhood and apparently inspired Andreas as well linger on the edges, as if the film isn’t sure how to weave them into anything meaningful.

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The trolls themselves shoulder their own backstory. Jotun’s rampage ties back to the legacy of Saint Olaf, the exalted king whose mythic triumphs once included the banishment of trolls. Now that history resurfaces as a thorn in the side of a modern Norway that prefers its legends uncomplicated. Jotun also has an estranged son, ensuring a showdown triggered by emotions the screenplay gestures toward more than it articulates. Captain Kris, too, is given a sliver of personal motivation so contrived that explaining it would spoil one of the film’s few minor surprises.

Most of these threads remain underdeveloped because the characters barely push against one another. Even pressure from the Norwegian president fails to raise the temperature. Scene after scene slides into the same unguarded earnestness, the same mild genre shorthand, the same impulse to wink at the audience while avoiding anything sharper. You notice this especially in the troll sequences, which hint at grander ideas but seldom commit to them.

Ironically, the film’s most engaging passages reduce the entire ensemble human and troll alike  to pieces on a historical puzzleboard tying King Olaf’s legacy to Jotun and his lineage. There’s a light Indiana Jones-style energy here, a sense of uncovering something buried just out of reach. But when the story arrives in Trondheim, the nation’s former capital and home to the postcard-ready Nidaros Chapel, the film seems to have exhausted its creative reserves. The notion that Jotun’s reawakening forces Norway to reconsider the myths it cherishes hovers in the background but receives hardly any sustained attention.

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So much time is given to reasserting how likable everyone is that the film’s one distinctive idea  that uneasy reckoning with a nation’s heroic lore drifts out of focus. Jotun still looks magnificent on screen, and his son is rendered with respectable craftsmanship, but their presence amounts to little more than lumbering chaos and gentle warnings about what might happen if they aren’t stopped. One leaves the film thinking: perhaps there’s a richer story waiting somewhere inside this material. Maybe next time.

Content Breakdown for Parents

Violence & Intensity: The film features fantasy horror violence. Goblins attack people with spears, trap them, and transform victims into plant-monsters.

Some deaths and transformations are disturbing and grotesque: characters are poisoned, transformed into “plant matter,” or disintegrated sometimes off-screen, sometimes on.

The horror is more “B-movie horror” than realistic gore much is weird, surreal, and fantastical. The creature effects are cheap costumes and makeup, contributing to a sense of unreality rather than realistic horror.

Language: Dialogue is often odd and stilted (the film was shot with Italian crew, translated into English poorly).  There are occasional threats and implied violence (“…we’ll be forced to kill you violently,” per one quote from a villager)Dialogue can be unintentionally comedic (or campy) so while there’s occasional intensity, it rarely carries the weight of realistic horror.

Sexual Content / Nudity: There is no prominent sexual content or nudity in Troll 2. The film’s horror and “weirdness” come from monsters, transformations, and gore-style effects, not from sexual scenes.

Drugs, Alcohol & Smoking: There is no clear depiction of drugs, alcohol, or smoking as “adult realism.” Instead, the film uses poisonous food and drink as a horror device (goblins trick victims into drinking/munching tainted meals).

Because the threat is supernatural and horrific rather than a realistic portrayal of substance abuse, it’s not comparable to real-world “drug/alcohol content.”

 Parental Concerns:

The horror elements are weird and grotesque people get mutated, eaten (off-screen or implied), or turned into plants; some sequences are quite unsettling. Not ideal for young or sensitive children.

Because the film is tonal swinging between horror and unintentional comedy younger viewers might be confused about what’s “realistic scary” vs “goofy horror,” which could raise anxiety or fear.

Dialogue and acting are awkward; some threats are violent or disturbing (even if not “graphic gore”), which may be off-putting or disturbing to some children or adolescents.

The film does not offer constructive moral lessons or mature emotional arcs; it’s mostly horror-comedy. So if you’re looking for “positive role models,” the payoff is minimal.