James Denham I honestly don't get why so many people hate this film. Sure it has its flaws, but overall it's still a very enjoyable movie with great animation, musical score, voice acting and presentation. I found myself sympathizing with Stanley (Dom DeLuise) as he is banished from the Troll Kingdom into New York City and later pursued by Queen Gnorga who wants him turned to stone.The songs are beautiful, especially Absolutely Green. All the voice actors and actresses did an excellent job. The animation is very smooth and well-done. As a child this was one of my favorite, if not my favorite animated film. When I was young the scene when Stanley is turned to stone drove me to tears. I found myself cheering when he comes back to life.However, the film does have its flaws. For example quite a bit of it consists of filler scenes such as flowers dancing and Stanley showing the children Gus and Rosie his magical dream boat. And the ending, after Stanley is revived, goes a bit overboard with him literally covering the entire city in vegetation. But unlike others, I wasn't too bothered by these flaws.Overall, I found A Troll in Central Park to be a lovable, entertaining children's film. As a child at heart I still love this movie and rate it 9/10. It's a shame we'll likely never see a sequel because I would have loved to see Stanley come back.

ironhorse_iv A Troll in Central Park also known as Stanley's Magic Garden is one of those film, that I watch as a child and really didn't like it, then. Re-watching it as an adult, I know the reasons why. I think the movie was unintelligent, too cutesy pandering, and just not what I wanted from a Don Bluth film. The reasons why 1982's The Secret of NIMH, 1988's Land Before Time, and 1986's American Tail; works, is because it had a complex story with depth that makes it watchable for both adults and children. There was action, comedy, and great animation. Here, it's lacking. Honestly, any kid 6 or up, will think of this movie, as baby drool. If the movie target audience was toddlers, sure it was success, but if the target audience was kids like myself, at the time, it sure was a failure. The movie is about Stanley (Voiced by Dom DeLuise) whom been exile from the Kingdom of Trolls by Queen Gnorga (Voiced by Cloris Leachman) & King Llort (Voiced by Charles Nelson Reilly). The reason for this, was to stop him from producing plant life with his green thumb. Don't know why, they're against it since they need it to breath, but go with it. I have to say, I do love Queen Gnorga opening song 'Queen of Mean', you truly get why trolls like upsetting people. Anyways, Gnorga banishes Stanley to New York City where, they believe has no plant life. Not knowing of them, Stanley finds himself in Central Park where two children named Gus and Rosie (Voiced by Phillip Glasser and Tawny Sunshine Glover) help him find his happy place. Unhappy by these recent results, and determined to suppress Stanley, Queen Gnorga travels to Central Park, herself, to have a face to face showdown with the Green Environment and his new-found friends. While the movie indeed insulting to child intelligence. It somewhat told a good undermine environment message. Yes, cutting trees are bad, and planting trees are good. Ironic, ain't it? That the movie waste so much paper to animated this film, to bring a message of saving trees. The movie tells it, so awful. Having evil trolls with no redeeming elements rather than realistic human characters wanted to destroy trees, doesn't help save the environment. I tell you why! When you make your characters less human, you suck out the humanity, meaning people are less likely to see what they could become. Honestly, the 1972's movie, 'The Lorax' told this story, better. This film need to be a cautionary tale of when someone, anyone, takes too much without realizing it. 'Absolutely Green' is a really positively song about being gentleness, empathy and living up to your dreams. Still, believing and doing something about it, are too different things. The movie wants you to dream for a better world, but the film doesn't give you, any tools or life lessons to make that happen. The movie kinda underhand the song message, by having Stanley go as low as Gnorga, by doing violent acts toward her. Yes, have the courage to fight what you believe, but turning her into a bush, and the whole NYC green is just malicious. There is reasons why we're don't live in the Forrest and Jungles, like our ancestors, because being surround by certain wildlife is dangerous. Yes, the movie is trying to be innocent, here, but honestly, who in their right mind, think that New York City is better off a Jungle, has to be crazy! I have to say, Stanley is an alright character. I know a lot of people hate him, due to his over optimist attitude. Perhaps because it contradicts what many people believe, is right. I do agree ignoring the harsh real movie for a make-believe world is pretty sad. The character can seem disrespectful and even indifferent to the challenges faced by many people to the point, it felt like a slap to the face. People want a realistic truth and mood in their fantasy. Stanley reminds me of a long-time marijuana smoker who trips out how the world should be, but has nothing really to show of it. Indeed, Stanley is surprising a stoner. The entire film could an allegory about the dangers of conformity. Remind me to Plato's Cave Allegory, a bit with the character arch of Stanley. Anyways, most of the voice acting is pretty good. The kids are bit annoying. I really can't stand Gus, he was a bit too fussy. No character arch as the kid doesn't learn how respectable, his dad had to work to provide food and shelter for him. He's still a bit self-egoism in the end of the film. The pacing is not that good. The movie partake in several minutes of undeluded filler. Lot of plot-holes and puzzling questions throughout this movie. Some examples are a four-year-old and his baby sister walk around the crowded streets of New York, unattended, and nobody notices or thinks this is suspect? Another one is how the trolls are aware of New York and know where it is? Indeed, one of reason for this film failing in the box office was because the film was released without any sign of promotion and its release was limited. The distributor Warner Bros. did not have any confidence in the film. That really tells you what they think of the film. The movie is a form of cinematic torture for adults and keep children in permanently infantilized. The movie isn't that bad. The animation is colorful, and well done. It's a notch better than those cheaply produced animated features that are released in straight to video releases. Overall: Troll in the Big Rotten Apple is a very bad troll as it lacks humor, conflict, and sense. Don Bluth had to be trolling when making this movie.

Elevator Music In the starry sky of the history of animation, Don Bluth stars as one of the greatest directors to ever grace with his works. He achieved the record for the highest-grossing animated film outside Disney not once, but three times (An American Tail, The Land Before Time, Anastasia).It is said that Don Bluth was the sole major factor that turned Disney to re-organize their strategies, make "The Little Mermaid", and ultimately lead to the Renaissance Age Of Animation.But sadly, now that Disney was awaken again, Don Bluth was overwhelmed with the competition against them. The issue is complex and I will explain it in my upcoming review of "The Pebble And The Penguin", which was the following Don Bluth film.Now, I will talk about "A Troll In Central Park".Well the technical features are high-quality, one of the things that Don Bluth kept in all his filmography no matter if his films were bad. The film has a colorful, contrasting, lavish animation, one of the things Don Bluth never compromised. It even has that style of the '30s-'40s (Snow White, Pinocchio, etc. ) feature films and short cartoons in the gestures and mannerisms of characters. Rotoscoping, employed in the children's parents, is also a nice thing to watch.The music also saves what otherwise would be a forgettable film. "Gnorga The Queen Of Mean" surprises the public with the sudden modernity of a Pop rock tune like those of the '80s and '90s (why is it that most of the times, the villains have the best songs in a film?). "Absolutely Green" is a poignant song of the kind that makes your eyes watery, complete with a children choir. The fact that is played in two powerful, nicely executed moments in the films surely will make, at least, the youngest of the children cry. Also the background music, just like the animation, is employed here just like Dumbo and other films of the early Disney era.Now, it is when you start analyzing the human features that the film starts showing its lacks... Tiger and Fievel had an excellent chemistry going on in "An American Tail"... but it's hard to tell why the same voice actors (playing Stanley and Gus, respectively) didn't work as well here. Gnorga has the absolutely best performance of all the film, with an outstanding job of Cloris Leachman in a rather weird role, who clearly enjoys being so hammy and troll-like. Llort is the other performance that passes the exam, although Gnorga wins all the awards by far. As an Argentine I tried to find the dub for this film, but it was never screened in Latin America so only the Spanish dub from Spain was made. I watched the Spanish dub and then the original English. I liked the original one for the voices of Stanley, the kids and their parents, but the Spanish dub is way better for the voices of Gnorga and Llort. Wow, even the Gnorga's song is upgraded from their pretty simple original lyrics and adds way more vocabulary and intricate things!Now, about the story... well, it's hard to call this a "story". And mind you, I'm a Don Bluth fan but even I admit this film failures. The film has many scenes and passages that seem shallow and simply don't go nowhere, plot-wise, such as Gus and Rosie playing in the park with balloons, boats or butterflies. The musical number of the flowers to cheer Rosie, in another passage, also qualifies. All these scenes make the film seem more like an "anecdote" of the children stroll in the park, but then again, this method can still be done well. Miyazaki proved in "My Neighbor Totoro" that you don't have to have a plot-driven, rather "Western-style" kind of storytelling, but also you can go in another way, with a rather "anecdote" or "trip" kind of story. But you don't see in "A Troll In Central Park" the gracefulness in which Miyazaki could present those kind of stories.The film also seems to lack more soul, "Rock-a-Doodle" and "Thumbelina" are also among the failures of Don Bluth, but it was their loads and loads of characters that helped to give more substance and charm to the films. Here you have too few characters, in a film with many claustrophobic sceneries (a dark kingdom, an underground cave, barren lands...)And when all is said and done, you have to look up to the info and find that this film budget was of $23.5 million, but only made $71,368... no words. This was one of the lowest grossing films of all time, one of the most notable box-office bombs (though not the greatest bomb of Don Bluth)So, even with the animation, the music, and Gnorga to redeem the film and lift the rating, this is such a poorly executed, so underwhelming film, with so many fails and lacks, and such a failure for costing $23.5 million and only making 71 thousand dollars, that I will rate it 3/10. The reason I'm not rating this 1/10 is because of the aforementioned lifting factors.But luckily, even if this is the worst Don Bluth film, both critically and financially, "A Troll In Central Park" will never be among the 10 worst animated films of all time, not even among the 20 worst ever... for Don Bluth, even in the misery and the mediocrity, still had his signature charm and willpower that made him one day leave Disney, and start an animation studio of his own.

OnTheCliffByTheSea Whatever happened to the masterpieces Don Bluth gave us? Secret of NIMH, hello? Of course, not ALL of his movies had to be like Secret of NIMH...but at least have the wonderful vibe. Is that vibe in this movie? Not even a little.I cannot believe I watched this movie as a kid. Why do people like this movie? I can't bear watching it! It's horribly written (I think Bluth got help from a few five-year olds to write the script.), there is no good moral, and it is sometimes confusing!Before you rate this comment negatively, let me explain the thing that gets to me most about this movie..."Why is the moral so bad?" There were actually two "morals" in this atrocity. One of them was "If you dream, good things will happen"...I understand that it's something for the kids, but when you think about it, that is NOT a good moral. You cannot just DREAM to get an A on the test, to have a steady relationship, or get a good job...you have to EARN it! I know that sounds a little over-the-top, but think! A kid can't dream to have a puppy. Your kid is going to be pretty disappointed if he dreams and he gets no puppy.The second "moral"? Well, when we meet Gus, he's a kid who just wants quality time with his dad. But he's always busy, so he always complains that he never wants to do what he wants to do. After all the chaos he went through, what does he teach the children watching this movie?"Dad...maybe we can do what I want to do?"Let it sink in. It may not sound so bad at first, but like the other moral, when you think about it, it's not good at all. Kids need to learn that they can't always get what they want and that their parents have to work to pay for their food and their house. Again, that sounds over-the-top, but again, think. Avoid this movie, especially if you're looking for something for the kids.