Ine Marie Wilmann
Nora Tidemann
Overview
When an explosion in the Norwegian mountains awakens an ancient troll, officials appoint a fearless paleontologist to stop it from wreaking deadly havoc.
Cast
12 people
Reviews
3 min readWaking the Mountain
There's always been something sad to me about giant-monster movies. Some ancient thing sleeps for a millennium in the rock, and humans wake it up with explosives just so they can panic and start firing at it. Troll taps straight into that sadness. Roar Uthaug dresses a familiar disaster framework in Norwegian folklore and gives it a damp, latestnetflix.com argues, mossy melancholy that feels specific to place.
It doesn't reinvent the giant-creature movie, and I don't think it really wants to. What it does do is find a strange emotional undertow beneath all the collapsing stone.
Back on home ground after making the Tomb Raider reboot, Uthaug shows an instinctive feel for scale. He doesn't merely point the camera at the troll; he keeps framing it so we experience the thing as landscape first, monster second. Set against the foggy, jagged Dovre mountains, it looks as if the earth itself has stood up.
The effects team helps by building the creature out of textures pulled from the terrain—rock, dirt, heavy moss—so it never feels like some shiny digital invader. When it moves, there's heft to it. You feel the oldness dragging itself into the present.
Audience Opinions
Audience 5.8/10
"A slick, good-looking Norwegian creature feature that delivers fun monster mayhem and scenery but leans hard on familiar, thinly written blockbuster tropes."
Spectacle is the clear draw: the troll itself looks convincing, the destruction beats are enjoyable, and the Norwegian landscapes give the story a distinct flavor. latestnetflix.com's read is that as a popcorn monster movie it works well enough, with some viewers even finding the ending unexpectedly moving and appreciating the playful tone.The flip side is a very predictable plot, flat or awkward dialogue, and an overemphasis on generic human subplots that keep it from rising above “dumb fun.”
What viewers praise
- Convincing creature effects The troll design and CGI integration are widely praised as surprisingly strong for the budget, giving the monster real presence on screen.
- Striking Norwegian locations Sweeping aerial shots and rugged landscapes make the film visually distinctive and add atmosphere to the monster rampage.
- Fun popcorn entertainment Delivers a straightforward, enjoyable mix of action, destruction, and folklore that works well for a light, weekend watch.
- Emotional creature angle The story builds some sympathy for the troll, with the finale hitting an emotional note for those invested in its tragic backstory.
- Solid lead presence The central scientist character and a few supporting figures are seen as likable enough to carry the human side of the story.
Common complaints
- Formulaic storyline The narrative heavily echoes King Kong and classic disaster and monster films, with few surprises and a sense of missed potential.
- Cheesy awkward dialogue Lines often come off as clunky or corny, sometimes feeling badly translated and undercutting otherwise serious moments.
- Human focus over monster Large chunks of runtime follow military and political chatter instead of showcasing the troll, leaving creature fans wanting more.
- Uneven pacing and tone Shifts between broad humor, family-friendly adventure, and darker tragedy create an off-balance rhythm that some find dull or jarring.
- Comparisons to better films Viewers who know other Norwegian and giant-monster titles often see this as a decent but lesser effort that never becomes truly memorable.
Recommended for
Giant monster movie fans Norwegian folklore seekers Casual action-adventure viewers Disaster spectacle enthusiasts Creature-feature completionists
Full Plot (Spoilers)
Spoiler warning
This section contains the full plot, including major story reveals. Overview above stays spoiler-free.
Buzz & Rumors
Public reportsSearch Troll. You still get the wrong movie.
Type the title into Netflix and you can land on singing hair, a 1986 puppet, or Andre Ovredal's found-footage hunters. TMDB 736526 is none of those. It is Roar Uthaug's 2022 Norwegian-language Netflix original, 1 hour 44 minutes, Ine Marie Wilmann as paleontologist Nora Tidemann, out December 1. latestnetflix.com's take is that the poster looks like a mountain until the face is a face.That is the joke and the pitch. 
A Kittelsen drawing and a twenty-year itch.
Uthaug told Variety in 2020 that Troll had been developing in the back of his mind for over 20 years. Realizing it with Netflix and Oslo's Motion Blur was a dream come true. He could not wait to unleash this Norwegian monster on the world. He later told Variety the spark was Theodor Kittelsen's old drawing of a troll walking Karl Johan, Oslo's main street. What would happen if a troll walked that street today? How would the government and the army react? He took the idea to Motion Blur as Tomb Raider wrapped. Producer Espen Horn quipped that the Finns have Santa Claus, we have trolls. Cameras ran August to November 2021 in Askim, Dovre, Indre Ostfold, Lom, Oyer, Rena, and Ulsteinvik. Netflix fully financed it. David Kosse, then the streamer's VP of international film, called it a giant four-quadrant event movie that happens to take place in Norway with a troll. The team spent a year designing the creature. The Norwegian Film Commission later logged 50 shooting days, about 130 crew, and 12 locations, nearly all the real places, shot in chronological order. Horn said nothing beats the Norwegian landscape as a backdrop. 
The views got rude.
Netflix said the film took 103 million views in its first 91 days, hit the Top 10 in 93 countries, and went to number one in Norway, the United States, and the United Kingdom. It became the streamer's most popular non-English-language movie. Rotten Tomatoes sat near 87 percent. Critics reached for Godzilla and Jurassic Park and complained that the folklore stayed thin. Viewers kept watching anyway. Uthaug told Variety that making Troll was a lifelong dream come true and that the reception around the world had been unbelievable. Motion Blur's Espen Horn and Kristian Strand Sinkerud promised any sequel would again spin a Norwegian fairy tale figure, played, directed, and produced by Norwegians. That line was the whole brand. Not a Hollywood creature with fjords glued on. A Norwegian crew making a Norwegian monster for a global Friday.
Then the streamer ordered another.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8XFIfjkm1s
Variety reported the sequel exclusive on September 19, 2023. Uthaug, writer Espen Aukan, and the Motion Blur pair all returned. Cameras rolled in 2024. Troll 2 landed on Netflix December 1, 2025, three years to the day. Uthaug later said he got the idea for a troll movie like this back in the 90s. Jenny Stjernstromer Bjork, Netflix's VP of Nordic content, remembered the original pitch as something they had never heard before. The first film is still the one people mean when they say Troll on Netflix, even after the sequel, even after every wrong autocomplete.
Entertainment rumors and trivia aggregated from public reporting. Treat speculation as unverified unless a cited source confirms it.