Colossal (2017)

[arc]

Anne Hathaway is an out of control drunk who has to move home, and then it turns out she's somehow controlling a giant monster (kaiju) in Seoul. Also stars Jason Sudeikis, directed by Nacho Vigalondo. Trailer.

Welp. The trailer said it'd be a fun movie, and it mostly was, but it got really serious too. Sudeikis and Hathaway both really nail all the messy real stuff in their characters that a lesser movie might excuse or forget about. Or well, the movie kind of gives Gloria (Hathaway) a little bit of a pass here and there*, but it definitely holds Oscar (Sudeikis) to account for being a thin Nice Guy shell over a core of an emotionally and physically abusive guy.

* that is, it kinda glosses over some of the deaths she caused in Seoul. On the other hand, she's always pretty serious about the catastrophic damage she's inflicted, and she makes real effort to get better (avoid the magic area, quit drinking).

Edited April 15, 2017 by arc

[AimingforYoko]

22 hours ago, arc said:

that is, it kinda glosses over some of the deaths she caused in Seoul. On the other hand, she's always pretty serious about the catastrophic damage she's inflicted, and she makes real effort to get better (avoid the magic area, quit drinking).

She does feel bad for the damage she's caused and it's the emotional blackmail Oscar uses to try and keep Gloria in town. Oscar turned into a straight-up villain, which I did not see coming. The "nice-guy" vibes were there early, but his heel turn was quite sharp. Joel, on the other hand, was a nice guy, if a bit of a jellyfish. I was a little disappointed he didn't intervene when Oscar got physical. And Tim was kind of an ass, but he may have earned that and he genuinely cared about Gloria. No perfect heroes in this one.

[absnow54]

Wow. I was not expecting this movie. I thought the big battle would be over Gloria's addiction and the havoc she was wreaking (magnified to a much larger scale.) But wow. This got really dark. 

I felt like they captured three different types of "nice guys." Oscar helps Gloria get on her feet by giving her a job and furnishing her house until she sufficiently owed him, and then flips on a dime when she doesn't reciprocate. Joel is the shy nice guy who stands by his friend after he's crossed the line, and then quietly steps away from the situation when it becomes too much. And Tim is the patronizing nice guy who is not at all equipped to help Gloria with her addiction. 

I thought there were some pacing issues, and the movie let some really uncomfortable moments linger for too long (like how many times did we need to see Oscar threaten to destroy Seoul if Gloria left him.) But the ending was truly satisfying. The entire audience cheered. 

I have to admit, the absolute best moment of the movie was early on when Gloria tripped in the park and took out a part of the city, she says something along the lines of "there's nothing I can do to stop this!" And the guy behind me shouted "Stop going to the park!" Like that was an easy 50 sq ft to ignore in the world. It was only when it was revealed that Oscar had the power too that there was any real conflict. 

[tongueincheek]

I found the movie to be a glorious, genre-bending flight of fancy: zany and harrowing. Subversively explored female agency, toxic masculinity and addiction. So much charm, I really didn't care how flimsy the plot got. Hathaway expertly anchored the show, assisted by an impressive face-heel turn by Sudeikis.

Also, the five shorts about technology at the top of the movie were fucking terrific and populated by Degrassi alums!

[SeanC]

That was really good.

I will say, on a scripting level I don't think the Joel and Garth characters quite work.  It's argued above that Joel is meant to be an examination of a particular sort of passive guy, which maybe works on one of the movie's metaphorical angles, but within the narrative it just doesn't work to me that he knows Oscar is murdering hundreds of people and doesn't seem even slightly inclined to do something about it.  Garth is evidently messed up on a personal level to some unknown degree (he just drops out of the narrative), but I felt like the screenplay either should have omitted them having knowledge of the monster/robot stuff (which isn't even necessary on a plot level anyway) or developed that angle more fully. 

That niggle aside, Anne Hathaway and Jason Sudeikis are terrific, and I think the movie mostly does a good job of juggling its by times comic, by times very disturbing tones.  In Sudeikis' case, this is the first role I've seen him in where he's really shaken off the SNL association, something it sometimes takes a while to happen with me for actors (like, in the bits I've seen of Race I kept expecting it to cut to Kenan Thompson playing Jesse Owens in a parody).