Review: COLOSSAL

Women As Monsters!

(And Hollywood Didn’t Think Of This Before?)

2.5 stars

Mini Review:

An out-of-work blogger tries to drink her sorrows away and in the process loses her boyfriend. She returns to her hometown where not much has changed. She bumps into a childhood friend who helps her get a job, at his bar. She discovers that each time she is drunk a gigantic monster appears on the other side of the world in Seoul. But when she tells her newfound friends this trouble ensues and she needs to rescue Seoul…Touted as a ‘sci-fi comedy’ this film is a great idea, but the comedy does not last and the sci-fi part doesn’t hold water.

Main Review:

Anne Hathaway as Gloria, has gone back to that horrendous ‘before’ hair from Princess Diaries in this film. And her being drunk through most of the film does not help us in liking her, the protagonist, very much. You do know people who take to the bottle when they’re out of a job but she just gives off the ‘spoilt irresponsible girl’ vibes. So you watch her fall into a drunken, tired stupor on the floor. She bumps into her childhood friend Oscar (played wonderfully by Jason Sudeikis) who runs his dad’s bar. He offers her a job and helps her get a television and sofa and things for her home.

Gloria makes friends with Oscar’s friends and they have many a drunken nights at the bar. Each time Gloria stumbles back home and falls asleep on the park bench, she realises that a monster appears at the opposite end of the world every time she stomps drunkenly in the park. She confesses to Oscar and the other friends and it seems like a comical thing that the monster would imitate her actions.

But her interest in the other friend, literally awakens the monster in Oscar too and a giant Robot appears in Seoul.

The idea that there’s a monster inside every one of us is great, but it stops being comical after you watch the monster scratch his head and dance. We want a better story than lightning striking her in the middle of her head. Really? Why didn’t she get blinded or otherwise affected. The science becomes mumbo jumbo.

Jason Sudeikis has a great personality twist and you sort of like this part of the film very much. He stops being the quiet man with a crush on the heroine. The personality change is so much more fun. It elevates the predictability of the monster and the girl story and turns it to something scarier.

Still you wish Julie Andrews would show up and fix Gloria's hair just as she did in The Princess Diaries. You also wonder how someone who has been out of work for over a year can afford to buy a long distance flight ticket. You wish there had been a little more science than the movie has and a little more comedy than the monster scratching its head...