Gnomes & Trolls: The Secret Chamber (2009) User Reviews

Gnomes vs. Trolls

[jertjitzboo · 4/10 · 12 November 2010]

If you are used to American cinema then this film will probably seem a bit off to you as it appears to be a Swedish product.

Great effort in character development which is sadly offset by the weak plot line. The film did a poor job keeping my kids interested and, frankly, seemed superfluous to them. Some entertaining moments for adults willing to pay attention which is a charming trait it shares with Disney but there is not enough of it.

I would not go out of my way to watch this movie and I would not recommend it particularly. In the event you are torn between watching this and another movie that is also not particularly good you won't be completely disappointed.

Gnomes & Trolls: The utterly bizarre chamber

[TheLittleSongbird · 3/10 · 30 September 2017]

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

Nice but not delicious.....

[mumandkids · 20 September 2011]

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.

characters are loathsome

[fredm-908-318795 · 1/10 · 26 November 2010]

The kid is defiant and irresponsible. Pretty much all the main characters do awful things to each other, with a warped sense of right and wrong.

The only character that is somewhat normal is the mother gnome.

Also, there is a bipolar hedgehog who is pretty amusing.

But basically, you have the kid who steals stuff from his dad, parents who snoop on the kid, and a troll who kills his father and laughs it off.

Then, the moral of the story is that technology is good and will solve all problems.

Would not recommend for children.

Warm family movie

[jloo4061 · 7/10 · 31 March 2009]

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.

Warm movie!

[emil_bohman · 8/10 · 18 November 2008]

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

Good times to spend with children below ten

[culdesacab · 7/10 · 5 November 2017]

It's not one of those top fancy slick big budget movies where you have hundreds of millions in budget. If you are looking for a movie like this, then your best bet is to search for Pixar, Dreamworks or Blue Sky films.

This is a low budget production from Swedish animation studio White Shark produced almost 10 years ago, bearing this in mind, you get what you expect.

The story takes you to the magical Scandinavian world where evil trolls fight against the good gnomes. Trolls like to steal and destroy, gnomes loves to help and protect animals in the forest.

Deep down in the forest lives evil troll king Fassa who conspire against the good gnomes with his evil son's Face and Slim. Their objective is the find the Gnome's food stash and steal it.

The mail character Junior, a young gnome at the age of 87, dreams of inventing new gadgets to improve the life of animals, while his old school father want things to stay as they are.

It's a feel good story line without the flat Hollywood jokes or the perfectly formatted movie script where you have break into act two on page 14 or pivot in the story 47 minutes into the film.

The rating in my review would consist of six parts.

Script, how it teaches children to do good and respect their parents 8/10 Original characters and backgrounds, given the budget and year of production: 6/10 Animation of the characters, given the budget and year of production: 5/10 How did my two children (3 and 8) react to this movie: 9/10 The children's willingness to watch the movie again: 7/10 Original story, how many movies with a similar theme or story did i see before: 7/10

The animations and look takes some time to adjust to (given the dominance of extremely colorful children movies), but seeing the young baby girl ask for the movie over and over again on her Ipad, improves the overall rating.

And the trolls are fun to watch...

Cute movie

[irenaholli · 10/10 · 26 December 2014]

Let me first write this, the movie does not match 150 million dollar blockbusters by the giants like Disney or 20th Century Fox, instead, its a cute family movie targeting the smaller children.

I have watched it several times with my two daughters, on DVD. They enjoyed it as much as I did.

We have watched it several times, and although it doesn't match the mega blockbusters, its still a cute and funny movie to enjoy with your kids.

It also shows Nordic mythologies, teach kids values etc.

The the young kid, Junior, who is our hero, tries new ways to do things right, and we really enjoyed how he tried to put things right.

Enjoy!