Colossal

I came across this movie on a YouTube video looking at non-Godzilla/King Kong kaiju movies. I thought "how did I miss a kaiju movie starring Anne Hathaway and Jason Sudeikis?". Well, when it turns out it isn't a kaiju movie in the strictest sense. Anne plays Gloria, an unemployed NYC party girl who gets kicked out by her boyfriend and moves back home to a small town in New Hampshire to sober up and find herself. Shortly after arriving, a kaiju monster (that kind of looks like a bipedal version of the terror dogs from Ghostbusters) attacks Seoul. Over time, Anne realizes that her and the kaiju are connected, to the point where the kaiju mimics her movements. A childhood friend that runs a bar can also manifest a kaiju (a Power Rnagers-style robot). Curiously, the monsters only manifest at a specific time, and Gloria and her friend Oscar have to be standing in a specific place for it to happen. The movie blends comedy, drama, and sci-fi as the two struggle to deal with their connection to gigantic monsters terrorizing South Korea. There is a lot to unpack in the movie, because it is trying to do a lot, and I think, in large part, it succeeds. There are two stories going here, really; Gloria's struggle to sober up and be the best version of herself, and Oscar's struggle with being the guy who never got out of the small town and kind of resenting Gloria for it. I've seen critiques of the movie say this is about toxic masculinity, and no, it's not; that's wish-fulfillment from people trying to turn everything into An Issue to be part of The Discourse. The fact that the male happens to handle it in a negative way and the female looks for the positive is not indicative of a gender-based commentary. It's just two broken people and how they handle being broken. One looks to repair, one breaks more stuff because if everything is broken, then nothing is broken. It's that simple. One notable aspect of this movie is that the kaiju stuff is actually background. You never directly see the monsters tearing up Seoul; there's clips on the news, YouTube videos, and live feeds on a phone, but there is no direct shot of them turning buildings into rubble. And that's good, because that's not what this movie is about. The monsters and how and why they exist (which, admittedly, isn't as interesting as the movie makes it out to be, and is poorly explained to boot) are a vehicle to explore the people who end up being their secret puppeteers. This may be the first movie to ever figure out how to do a kaiju movie and make the humans interesting: by making the kaiju plot devices. I don't want to give away a lot of this movie, because this one of those films that the joy is in seeing where this bizarre and unique concept will go. In the interest of giving you reasons why to see it, I'll rattle off some positives: - The chemistry between Hathaway and Sudeikis is enjoyable. - Hathaway nails the comedy here. She really has a gift for it. Her character is also very relatable. Gloria makes mistakes, says the wrong thing, gets exasperated ... she feels human. - This is one of those movies where you think they have a handle on things and you start to wonder how they'll fill the time, and then it finds a new wrinkle on the situation. - It manages to juggle the tones nicely. When it needs to be humorous, it is, and the humor is never sitcomy or overtly going for a punchline. It's all relatable, simple humor. Llikewise, when it wants to be dramatic and serious, it does that well. In fact, wow, Sudeikis can be a pretty good dramatic actor! - It doesn't force the ending you expect. I always appreciate a movie that doesn't want to wrap things up in the way Hollywood expects. So, what holds it back, you ask, since it's an 8/10 and not 10/10? There's a mid-movie heel turn by one of the characters that, in the long run, feels necessary to complete a story arc, but it happens so abruptly, it feels unearned. There are some plot holes and inconsistencies, especially with the progression of time -- one scene has someone jumping out of a bedroom window into the backyard, where it is clearly night, and by the time they run out of the front yard, the sun is rising. Unless they ran around the friggin' White House, that's some serious time dilation. Anybody not named Gloria or Oscar might as well be listed in the credits without a name. They are the only characters that really matter here. And that ending that doesn't do what you expect it to do? It also kind of violates a character motivation set up earlier, which renders is somehow satisfying and out of place. It's an ending that says "we want a certain ending no matter how much it breaks the logic of the character". Overall, I was pleased with Colossal. For as much as it has a grocery basket of flaws, they're all smaller flaws. Nothing here kicked me out of enjoying the movie (okay, the issues with time of day were unavoidable, but whatever). It's quirky and unusual. It's got a unique premise. It has a heart and a sense of humor. It doesn't nail all the details, but it gets (wait for it) a COLOSSAL amount of them right. I'll get my coat.