Dreamworks’ third installment of the Trolls series emerges as a delightful homage to eccentricity, blending the best of its predecessor with an infusion of ’90s boy band music, creating a whimsical and peculiar adventure.

The Dreamworks formula often ushers in a streak of sheer madness by the time it hits the third film in an animated saga. Trolls initially emerged as a peculiar hybrid, yet another instance of transforming a toy line into a movie (featuring the troll dolls with their gravity-defying hair), evolving into a campy children’s story. The adaptation followed all the beats of a typical Dreamworks film (which, when it wants to, can be more predictable, classical, and conventional than Disney itself), but it was designed, animated, and painted with a passion for kitsch and queer comedy – once underground cinema (think ‘Priscilla,’ ‘Queen of the Desert,’ and even further back, John Waters’ films like ‘Hairspray’) now brought to the surface, even in family-oriented cinema.

In the first film, the blend was stellar, anchored in music. However, the sequel fashioned a fantasy world where different realms represented various musical genres, albeit losing much of the prior film’s madness.

Now, “Trolls 3: Together Again” resurrects the union of the familiar and the crazy. The story revolves around the central characters, discovering they have long-lost siblings, a typical yet overused trope to expand the cast and concoct new escapades. Particularly, the lead character’s family (voiced by Justin Timberlake in the original) turns out to have been a boy band that disbanded. In a meta-cinematic moment, Justin Timberlake (also the film’s producer) lends his voice to a character singing in a boy band reminiscent of the one he was a part of – NSYNC.

“Trolls 3” boasts a delightful celebration of madness, weaving a tale where even more than in its predecessors, the material of things seems paramount. Despite being an animated film, an earnest attempt to render the textile quality of characters, their homes, the soft rubber of the antagonists’ world, or the glass of their prisons (yes, that’s there too), not forgetting glitter, cotton, and caramel, is evident.

The movie follows a logical thread, offering a conventional adventure on the surface, but fundamentally, it thrives on speed, colors, and audacious visual juxtapositions. It’s, in a way, a contradiction to the fundamental principles of its historical rival, Pixar, which believed in storytelling above all. While Pixar’s mantra was ‘story comes first,’ “Trolls 3” aligns itself with films like Madagascar 3, How to Train Your Dragon 3, or even Hotel Transylvania 3 (though it belongs to Sony Picture Animation). These films make sense through the assembly of music and visuals. The focus is on the impact they create rather than the narrative they convey or the diverse elements they can amalgamate into a vibrant, entertaining, and engaging spectacle.

“Trolls 3” tackles the most appropriate musical genre for its aesthetic – disco. From the Jackson 5 to classics and modern disco (in the realm of the antagonists), the film zeroes in on the sub-genre of ’90s boy bands, the most intriguing flip. Boy band music was associated with a world of handsome and hetero appeal (which, viewed today, isn’t far from the gay imagination), originally intended for a female audience. However, in “Trolls 3,” this ‘perfectly marketable’ world transforms into the soundtrack of a queer universe, where there are no best or worst, where shapeless or downright ugly characters constitute the romantic part, finding beauty in repulsion as much as in attraction.