Trolls review – a candy-coloured return for the famed ugly-lovable creatures

Anna Kendrick voices princess Poppy, the heroine of the resilient frizzy-haired toys, in this funny, kidult animation that will rival Shrek

Here is an eye-popping, candy-coloured, MSG-fuelled and cyclamate-powered new animation from Dreamworks - it does not, as may one day happen, laud those cute little critters that lurk angrily in online political chatrooms, tweeting Pepe the Frog memes. Instead, Dreamworks is attempting to take a leaf out of its own Shrek manual and build a monster hit out of an ugly-lovable creature: the frizzy-haired toys that never seem to have disappeared since the first fad erupted in the 1960s. It seems that Dreamworks has bought the entire Trolls brand, so stands to make more money than usual if it all takes off.

Related: Trolls: does DreamWorks have a Shrek-sized hit?