Review: Colassal

And you thought you had problems.

Gloria (Anne Hathaway) is a party girl who hasn't held a job in over a year. Her boyfriend, Tim (Dan Stevens) breaks up with her and kicks her out of her apartment. She's forced to move to her hometown in Maine where she meets up with Oscar (Jason Sudeikis) an old friend. When a giant monster starts terrorizing Seoul, South Korea. Gloria realizes she's strangely connected to it.

Colassal might be one of the most original films I see all year. It's funny in retrospect that the producers of this film almost got sued back in 2015 for this being "too close to Godzilla" when their only connection is "Monster in Asia." Obviously, it's a bit silly, you have to know that going in, but it ended up being very different than I expected it to be.

It feels like forever since I've seen Anne Hathaway in something, and she's great here. She somewhat channels her Rachel Getting Married hot mess. Jason Sudeikis may seem like he's playing more of the same at first, but he eventually steps out of his comfort zone.

The film does have one, well, colassal problem with it. Aside from it being a bit of a stretch that Gloria never tells Tim about the monster, she actually tells three people total, then two of them spend the rest of the film doing absolutely nothing about it. Despite - without spoiling anything - being in a position where they could've stopped a lot of damage from happening. It was so forced that it became distracting as the film drew closer to its end. There was no excuse for it.

While not a perfect film, Colassal is different from a lot of things we'll see this season, and should certainly be watched. Its take on a certain type of relationship (again, avoiding context due to spoilers) is actually amazing. 

Recommended: Yes

Grade: B

Memorable quote: "These people are looking at us." - Gloria (Anne Hathaway)


Comments

  1. I don't know...I feel like people are so caught up with their shit them not doing anything about this situation wasn't that weird. People don't do anything with things to do with them, let alone with other people on the other side of the world. I did love that twist to do with one character's personality. It totally made the movie switch genres to actual thriller.

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    1. It felt so unrealistic to me that those other guys just watched them in the park and never tried to drag them out. Especially Joel, there was no excuse for him not trying to stop the others, imo. Dude is sitting at a bar when he could be trying to drag his friends out of the park.

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    2. Honestly, I'm with Sati here in that I didn't find this to be an issue. I can see it playing out similarly in reality, the film went out of its way to show that this guy wasn't just a monster in the sense that he controlled a giant robot in Asia, but an actual monster in real life. The others were clearly intimidated by him, and were shown multiple times to be afraid of stepping their bounds with him, 'cause they KNOW he's the kinda crazy who can and WILL totally snap on them. So yeah, them doing nothing to stop him honestly makes sense, given the context provided by the movie, because at the end of the day, it's not just that he's nuts, but that he also happens to be a control freak who surround himself by submissive cowards.

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    3. I don't think the other actors played it like they were afraid of him, and that's kind of what got it for me. I'm glad you guys weren't distracted by it.

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  2. I do want to see this. The idea of Anne as a kaiju is awesome and it looks like she's having fun. I want to see her do more films like this. She's one of my boos.

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    1. She's good. (I mean, she always has been, but her Oscar campaigning was a bit of a turn off)

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  3. I'm so excited to watch this. The premise sold me on this and Anne Hathaway looked like she was having fun with the role.

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  4. I have been so hyped for this movie since I saw the trailer, it just looks so original. I'm glad it's worth seeing. Is Dan Stevens in it much apart from in the beginning?

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    1. He comes back again in the final act, but he's not in it very much at all.

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  5. Nice review here. I agree, while not a perfect film, it was different, and that deserves at least some praise. Definitely not going to see anything else like it this year, and I appreciate that.

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  6. I have not heard about this film but it sounds original and could be considered really, really dumb. I know my hubby will not care to see it but I am liking the premise

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    1. I get how the premise could seem dumb but the film is far from it.

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  7. Mostly enjoyable but doesn't quite work. What they did with Sudeikis's character came a LITTLE too much out of nowhere for me, or maybe the motivation wasn't clear enough/felt off somehow. But Anne is SO GOOD. And also the ending (like, literally the very end, the last beat of it before the credits) is PERFECT.

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