Trolls' Bland Twitter Campaign Lives Up to Movie's Name

Back before the word “troll” meant “scourge of the Internet,” it referred to little plastic dolls that smelled weird and had crazy Kramer hair and sat on bedroom shelves or on the ends of kids' pencils. DreamWorks Animation is making a movie about the inexplicable ’90s toy—for why, please consult Creativity (Death Thereof) or CGI Cash Grab in your appendix—and to promote it they’ve enlisted their A-list voice cast to pose with their trollish embodiments. Tired of personality? Enraged by celebrities who look to be enjoying themselves? Well, this is the campaign for you!

To wit, we have the likes of Justin Timberlake, Anna Kendrick, Russell Brand, Gwen Stefani, and even Icona Pop taking to their Twitter accounts to say “Hair we go!” and posting photos of themselves with forced expressions and their “troll” on their shoulder. The only holdout was *Undateable’*s Ronald Funches, who minimized the taint by tweeting a more subdued “Remember Trolls?! They’re back!” Guys, you’re better than this. (Especially you, Justin.)

This is actually an murderer's row of voice talent—JT is even emerging from musical semi-retirement to write songs for the movie—but everything about this makes everyone feel terrible. Even if these are pre-existing shots of the cast, their faces are saying one of three things: “I’m here for the paycheck”; “I should have asked for final approval on my character design"; and "Please, Aztec god Xiuhtecuhtli, strike me down with your cleansing fire." Using the massive Twitter followings of your stars is a wonderful way to get traction for your movie, but there’s only one place we really want to see pictures of trolls: eBay.

Trolls hits theaters Nov. 4. The tweets that are not selling us on this movie are below.