“TROLLHUNTER” My rating: B- (Opening July 22 at the Screenland Crossroads)
90 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13
The Norwegian “TrollHunter” purports to be footage left behind by members of a college film crew who have mysterious vanished.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.
Actually, André Øvredal’s film, an amusing mashup of elements from “The Blair Witch Project” seasoned with a bit of “Men in Black,” is a lot more entertaining than you’d expect given its by-now-cliched premise.
Maybe it’s the way the film wields its uber-dry sense of humor, presenting with a straight face thoroughly fanciful, nay, absurd notions.
Our student filmmakers are on-camera interviewer Kalle (Tomas Alf Larsen), sound girl Johanna (Johanna Morck) and cameraman Thoms (Glenn Erland Tosterud…who is heard but rarely seen for obvious reasons).
As the movie starts they are trying to do an expose about wildlife deaths in rugged fiord country. There are rumors of rapacious poachers, and the three fledgling moviemakers think they have a suspect in a bearded, middle-aged guy who drives a beat-up all-terrain vehicle and tows a mobile home that gives off an unidentifiable reek. (more…)
Butler's Cinema Scene 