User reviews

It actually pains me to say that about 'Gnomes & Trolls: The Secret Chamber', as it does with any animated film or show that is considered mediocre or less by me. Am a big fan of animation and foreign/international animation fascinates me (particularly Russian and Japanese anime), but when eventually viewing it online it just didn't do anything for me.

'Gnomes & Trolls: The Secret Chamber' sounded like it could have been a decent film at least if done right, but the execution was severely lacking in almost every area. While nowhere near among the worst animations ever made it is down with the most bizarre and messiest. Not being a prude, or at least not intending to be, am a child at heart despite being a young adult who judges every film taking target audience, the film's aim and what it is meant to be into account.

The best thing about 'Gnomes & Trolls: The Secret Chamber' is the father/son relationship, that was the one element that had any heart or humanity and was beautifully and tenderly done.

Some of the backgrounds have some nice detail and Peter Stormare has fun with his character. There is the odd bit of sporadic amusing humour but it's never hilarious.

However, the animation is mostly not good at all. The backgrounds have moments, while others were simplistic and unfocused, but the colours are flat and murky and even worse the character designs are stiff and look ugly, almost unintentionally creepy.

Particularly bad too was the storytelling, working only in the father/son relationship. The rest of it is very messy and muddled, almost borderline confusing with many things coming over as vague which gives it an overly hectic and sprawling all over the place vibe. It started off slow then got rushed and weird. The dialogue often sounds awkward and while love, friendship and family values are very important they have been executed with far more subtlety elsewhere than the patronising way 'Gnomes & Trolls: The Secret Chamber' did.

None of the characters did anything for me, they were either bland, annoying, bizarre or pointless. You'd be hard pressed to find a weirder character of any animated film in the past decade than that hedgehog. Of the voice acting, Stormare is the only one who actually fits his character and sounds like he's making an effort. Talented prolific voice actress EG Daily is wasted.

In summary, bizarre and messy but not without its redeeming merits. 3/10 Bethany Cox

Was easier to watch the second time. A lot of the action and scenery looked similar so you had to listen hard to the script to get a lot of the jokes and understand what was happening. Even after the second time (though I wasn't watching as closely as the kids) it was hard to know the names.

Visuals exciting if a little messy, but lots of things unexplained or not explained clearly- a little more back info on the characters would have given them more depth. Why are the gnomes and trolls in the forest and why do they fight each other? Bipolar hedgehog, very bizarre character- why is he like this? And as a previous review said, the boy lying and taking something from his father should have been addressed and apologised for by the boy somewhere in the 'moral of the story'.

We hired this movie (hence watching it 2-3 times) but would not intentionally choose to hire it again, may be interesting to see if the 'Forest Trial' movie (2010) is a good follow-on though.

The story is set in Scandinavian forest. Young junior struggles to go his own path, but his father wants him to follow his path. This is small White Shark's first CG movie, and I cannot say more than "Im impressed". CG movies has been until today only produced by large studios with 100million+ budget.

This movie was produced for less than three (3?) million, and it still keeps the kids stuck to the screen for 75 minutes. My two children loved it, and my younger son wanted to see it again. It's not a movie for the teenage kid, but rather for a 5-7 year old. The music is fantastic, with a great atmosphere.

If i would to put any negative, then the trolls are a bit scare for the younger kids, but that is of course a troll! The facials are also not the best and it feels sometimes as it was not put too much love about the expressions. But then again, with the small budget, i can understand this.

Regarding the animations, its OK, not a Kung-Fu Panda or a Bolt, but then not worse than any other mid-budget movie. I would say the animations are like Ice Age or Valiant.

Its a different movie and Im excited to see what this young studio will come up with in the future. A bit slow in the beginning, but definitely picks up the pace at the end.

I give it 7 out of 10.

I found this movie pretty entertaining, and I bet will become a favorite among the children. The plot is simple and the characters are fun and interesting. I especially enjoyed the trolls in this movie. They are very funny with their charming stupidity, and I think the animations of the trolls look better than those of the gnomes...

The overall animations do, understandably, not match the productions of Pixar and Dreamworks, but that doesn't really bother me much. There's a warm fuzzy feeling about this movie that just can't be ignored. It exudes of joy and happiness! Definitely a good debut by Swedish producers White Shark.

Go watch it with your kids, they will surely love it! 8/10