DVD REVIEW: TROLLZ – VOL. 1 & 2

"Hey, remember those cute little Treasure Trolls from the 80s? How bout we take them, give them a Bratz makeover and make them trendy little heroes!"

The Humans (their voices anyway)

Alexandra Carter, Leah Juel, Anna Van Hooft, Chiara Zanni and Britt McKillip

The Nutshell

Sapphire, Onyx, Topaz, Ruby and Amethyst are the Trollz. Five high school students who are just trendier versions of the old Treasure Troll dolls (complete with jewels in their navels). Armed with "spellphones" and super-huge troll hair they use magic to get to class on time, find that perfect outfit and, occasionally, save the world.

The artwork is snappy, with four of the Trollz in the background saving the focus for the Troll on whom the story centers. The case is housed in a slipcover, and while they did technically use the same artwork for both the case and the cover, they added the detail of embedding a tuft of troll hair in the slipcover, replacing the standard drawn-on hairdo of the spotlighted troll. It’s a nice touch.

As far as the extras, for the set-top there’s the standard music video(s) (comprised of one of the songs from the show) a spell moment (kind of like a bumper-segment where the Trollz humorously mis-cast yet another spell), a Trollz Personality Quiz (I’m just like Sapphire!), a paper-doll type style game and some trailers for other DiC/WB releases. For your DVD-ROM there is a fully-interactive memory book (similar to the one Amethyst has in the show) which lets the kids create a virtual diary with Trollz-Themed decorations along with pictures and music from their own computer (but it requires the crappy InterActive player). The memory book is admittedly a neat concept, although it would have been better used as a separate application that could be installed on your machine. As it is you can’t access it without having the Trollz DVD in the tray.

So, here we have the Trollz: Sapphire, the smart one; Topaz, the ditzy (and blonde!) one; Onyx, the Goth-Chick; Ruby, the sarcastic, self-absorbed one and Amethyst, the unofficial leader. I had the "pleasure" of viewing the first two volumes of the Trollz DVD series: Best Friends for Life – The Movie and Magic of the Five – The Movie.

One thing I have to mention – when you see the subtitle "The Movie" you usually expect to see a full-length story that plays out over the course of a feature-length…well…movie. That’s not the case here. It looks like DiC took a few episodes of the upcoming series, cut off the opening and closing credits, then just jammed them together and called it a movie.

Now, moving on, anyone who’s familiar with DiC’s Sabrina: The Animated Series will probably recognize the premise of this show (you might also recognize Britt McKillip, who is also the voice of Sabrina). In pretty much every episode Sabrina uses her magic and ends up in trouble. Which is exactly what happens here. There are a few differences however, as the Trollz don’t have to hide their magic as they’re trolls and everyone knows trolls are magic. Also, at the end of every episode Sabrina learns the fabled "Valuable Lesson." However, after the Trollz complete an adventure, while there IS a lesson, they don’t really make an effort to explain it. Pretty much all of the troubles the Trollz get into stem from mis-cast spells and while they do have to go make it right, you don’t get a sense of them learning anything from it. All-in-all it’s a decent show, full of catchy pop-music and hipster teenage lingo, and the little girls are sure to eat this up when it hits the airwaves (there’s a toy line as well, obviously), but at the end of it all it feels pretty shallow.