Horror comedy. PG-13; 1 hour, 30 minutes. At the Mayan.
Troll hunting is a much less thrilling career than the name implies. It’s a messier job than most human beings can handle. There are clueless government employees to deal with at every turn. And the paperwork!
Andre Øvredal’s dry horror-comedy, “Trollhunter,” is successful on multiple levels, with a brisk pace, excellent location work and a strong lead performance by Norwegian comedian Otto Jespersen. Hans (Jespersen) is a troll hunter who is good at his job but a little fed up with the bureaucratic morass. A group of young journalists thinks he’s a bear poacher but quickly discover the truth, and he takes them for the story of their lives across the Norway countryside.
Øvredal’s script is rarely laugh-out-loud funny, but it matches some over-the-top action with a very strong wit. (“Do you think Michael Moore gave up after the first try?” one filmmaker whines, after the crew’s first near-death experience.) This is a writer-director who probably grew up watching a lot of George A. Romero and Paul Verhoeven films.
The enormous trolls look like Maurice Sendak creations, except older-looking and with really bad psoriasis. Their washed-out look is particularly noticeable in scenes where they’re giving chase in near-daylight. But the gruff Hans is the real show here. He’s a working-class hero, who happens to turn trolls into stone for a living.
