Colossal (2016)

Director: Nacho Vigalando
Writer: Nacho Vigalando
DOP: Eric Kress
Cast: Anne Hathaway, Jason Sudeikis, Austin Stowell

Gloria is an out-of-work party girl forced to leave her life in New York City, move back home in a small town. When reports surface that a giant creature is destroying Seoul, she gradually comes to the realization that she is somehow connected to this phenomenon.

Nacho Vigalando was the director of Spanish time-travel film 'Timecrimes' which was excellent. The tone of Colossal is totally different from the intense thriller nature of timcrimes and is more of a comedy film. The central premise of the film sounds very preposterous and it is quite commendable that they manage to sustain it without losing the audience almost till the end. I say almost because it does kind of loses you towards the end but is still a very fun watch. There is this big allegory it is trying to make with her addiction and how that might be having unintended consequences in a very unsubtle manner. The weak point of the film is obviously in the portrayal of her addiction which I think came out more as cute rather than self-destructing. I won't blame Anne Hathaway for that because those are decisions made by the director. She was good in her role as was Jason Sudeikis in a role against his type. His motivation remains somewhat unclear throughout and we are not sure whether it is plain jealousy, spurned love or a combination of both.

It is surprising that it didn't do that well in box-office grossing around four million on its 15 million budget. It is much better than many of the comedy films and monster films out there. Only other ones I can think of in this genre are 'The World's End' and 'Attack the Block', both of which came out from the same school. Colossal also works as a spoof. It is much better to watch it without knowing many things about it.

Rating: 3/5