"Trollhunter": Mockumentary Monster Movie Is a Snooze

Motorists always have to pay the troll.

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Rated PG-13. Opens Friday at the Lumiere.

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More About

• Otto Jespersen
• Robert Stoltenberg
• George A. Romero

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Alleged to be compiled of found college-project footage from a group of missing students, Trollhunter begins as an investigative report by aspiring Norwegian Michael Moores trailing RV-driving loner Hans (Otto Jespersen). Suspected of bear poaching, Hans is revealed instead to be the field agent in a government conspiracy to cover up the existence of very real, very large trolls. Unlike the recent Last Exorcism, which managed to energize the weary horror mock-doc conceit through sustained uncertainty, Trollhunter dispenses with skepticism as a suspense element — trolls are spotted early, nakedly viewed. In place is the film's (one) joke: draining the magic and thrill out of trollhunting. Social Democratic bureaucracy, paperwork, and systemized corruption have bogged down even Hans's seemingly adventuresome government job, which he discusses with a Dirty Jobs air of bored expertise. The result of this intentional banalization, perhaps not unexpectedly, is that Trollhunter is often a dull movie, with Jespersen's deadpan and the interference of an incompetent front-office type (Robert Stoltenberg) providing what comedy there is. The panicked, jittery-camera action scenes work well enough, and one sees much scenery and learns a great deal about the habits of trolls — though as demythologizings go, Trollhunter doesn't have the wit, art, or social insight to honor the legacy of George A. Romero's Martin.