COLOSSAL (2017) MOVIE NEWS & REVIEW

colossal (2017) movie

Genre              |  Fantasy Comedy

Classification   |   M

Running time   |   110 minutes

Released         |   27 April 2017

cast

Anne Hathaway ... Gloria
​Jason Sudeikis ... Oscar
​Dan Stevens ... Tim
Austin Stowell ... Joel
Tim Blake Nelson ... Garth

director

Nacho Vigalondo

writer

​Nacho Vigalondo ... (written by)

cinematographer

​Eric Kress

music

​Bear McCreary

film editor

Ben Baudhuin
Luke Doolan

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box office result

Worldwide             $3,029,287    

Australia                 $​​​​​​​134,908

North America       $​​​​​​​3,029,287

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the best dialogue

Gloria: [throws the bar keys towards Oscar] Here! There are your keys; I'm not coming back to your shitty bar!
Oscar: [picking up the keys] Yeah you are.
Gloria: [panting] Oh yeah?
Oscar: Yeah.
[Throws the keys at Gloria with enough force to hurt her]
Gloria: [holding her stomach in pain] Ow!
Oscar: [calmly] You're gonna keep working at the bar, or I'm gonna come back here tomorrow, and destroy an entire neighborhood.
Gloria: [through her teeth, bringing her face close to Oscar's] Then I'll come back and I'll kick your fucking ass!
Oscar: [still calm] No you won't. I'm done being Mr. Nice Guy.
[Knocks her to the ground. Gloria grunts in pain as she hits the ground hard]
Oscar: [leans down, calm] See you at work?
[Gloria looks up at him speechless]
Oscar: I'll see you at work.

Gloria: Keep it cool. These people are looking at us.
Oscar: [looks at the women at the next table] Hi. She's the monster; I'm the robot.

COLOSSAL (2017) MOVIE IMAGES

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COLOSSAL (2017) STORY SYNOPSIS

​Gloria is an out-of-work party girl who leaves New York and moves back to her hometown after getting kicked out of her apartment by her boyfriend. When news reports surface that a giant creature is destroying Seoul, South Korea, Gloria gradually comes to the realization that she is somehow connected to this far-off phenomenon. As events begin to spiral out of control, she must figure out why her seemingly insignificant existence is having such a colossal effect on the fate of the world.

COLOSSAL (2017) MOVIE REVIEW

Reviewed by Mark Geraghty   |   Review date 12 April 2017
​Pop Movee Rating ⭐⭐⭐

If ever you've wanted to see two people playing out the proverbial “Kid in the sandbox” battle, COLOSSAL is the film for you. Spanish Writer-Director Nacho Vigalondo delivers a film that is part comedy, part Monster Vs Robot homage and part character study seeking to uncover the truths of experience that help inform the greater and lesser Angels that all humans are sometimes called by. While not unenjoyable, the film is unevenly paced and, at 110 minutes, is at least ten to fifteen too long. Anne Hathaway fans will be seventh heaven, as she is on screen for the great majority of the time and her performance holds the plot together until the final frames of the movie.

Despite the manner in which the story is told, COLOSSAL is not a unique narrative. The lasting impression of the film, for those who can remember as far back as 1996, is how reminiscent the themes it explores are to the Ben Stiller-directed, Jim Carrey headlined black comedy THE CABLE GUY. Like Matthew Broderick’s Steven Kovacs in that film, Anne Hathaway’s Gloria doesn't stand for much and it takes the standard Third Act epiphany for her to realize that she’s genuinely talented and no bully can stand in her way. The relationship between Hathaway’s Gloria and Oscar, played by Jason Sudeikis, also mirrors that of Broderick and Carrey’s in THE CABLE GUY. At first, Oscar seems pleased to see Gloria, who has returned back to her upstate hometown after being kicked out by her boyfriend. Played by Dan Stevens, currently seen as Beast in Disney’s live-action BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (2017), Gloria’s boyfriend has become fed-up with her non-stop partying and lack of meaningful employment. Sudeikis as Oscar comes across as a little offbeat, but, at face value he seems like an okay guy.

Where COLOSSAL differentiates itself is in the metaphor it uses to explore the relationship between Gloria and Oscar. In a unique twist, Vigalondo’s script features a Kaiju-style monster take on Hathaway’s physical traits as it stomps it way through downtown Seoul, killing thousands of innocent people. It’s a clever concept and, for the first half of the film, provides Colossal with its key comic moments. For those who have seen the trailer, it's not hard to believe that the entire movie is dedicated to the Hathaway-Monster comedic symbiosis. Seeing the full-length feature is an entirely different proposition. Vigalondo decides to use the second half of COLOSSAL to explore the darker side of humanity, providing Sudeikis with a Robot alternate who, at first, appears to work in tandem with Hathaway’s Monster alter-ego and then against her. The to and fro between the two main characters is, at first, funny, but Oscar’s vacillation between deciding whether he’s a nice guy or a complete asshole drains the film of energy and makes the viewer impatient to get to the story’s denouement.

​Vigalondo has definite skill as both a Writer and Director, but he needs learn how to tighten his storytelling skills, as much of COLOSSAL’s second half consists of unnecessary scenes that elaborate on information the viewer already has. He holds back on the story’s big reveal to the point where most astute viewers will have already worked out what has happened and shaped Gloria in the way she acts. The film’s finale is cleverly staged, but the detail is a little hard to accept and the fate of a key character is dealt with in a ham-fisted, predictable manner that doesn’t do justice to the preceding 105 minutes of the movie. Unfortunately, Colossal bears no resemblance to its title, despite its efforts to do otherwise. ​

COLOSSAL MOVIE (2017) USEFUL LINKS

​Colossal (2016) - IMDb
Colossal (film) - Wikipedia
​Colossal (2017) - Rotten Tomatoes

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