Human in USA, Monster in Seoul

With her horribly heavy bangs and dark-coloured jackets, Hathaway plays the role of Gloria - a writer with a drinking problem who's struggling to keep it together. But there's a bigger problem out there in the streets of Seoul and somehow, it is being caused by Gloria. 

Colossal is a bizarre, intelligent, thought provoking science-fiction film that manages to hold your attention till the very end, despite its crazy storyline. The film starts off well with a promising ground and you'd expect it to get bigger and better with time. To be fair, it does get bigger and better but I think the film had a good number of possibilities to project more on the "inner demon situation" going on with the two main characters - Gloria and Oscar (played by Jason Sudeikis). It sort of felt like the writer ran out of ideas after the intermission and managed to put together the ending with minimum effort. 

Having said that, one reason why I really liked this movie is because I think it takes a lot of courage to come up with a sci-fi story like Colossal. It can be interpreted in so many different ways - and might even be declared downright wacky by the audience. And this wackiness is exactly why I enjoyed this movie. Beneath the layers of Gloria, Oscar, and this monster - I think the story is trying to tell us something entirely different. It's obvious that it's trying to touch on the fact that a small internal brawl in America can cause another city in another part of the world to undergo colossal damage. Just as people in the Western world can create a monster in some country in Asia, the same people can also destroy the monster when it's time. 

The film is actually a blend of a number of genres. It tries to go heavy on comedy, but just as you expect it to be falling-off-the-couch hilarious, it turns into something extremely dark, emotional and humane. It touches on the sensitive topic of alcoholism and how it affects an individual and the people around him/her. Gloria's drinking problem is what gets her to her parent's abandoned home in first place, and it might as well be why she and Oscar turn into monsters.  

The usually charming actor Jason Sudeikis did a great job of playing the character of an irrational, privileged masculine figure whose sense of entitlement is so aggravating it literally hurts. The contrast of Oscar with the strong, fiercely independent female protagonist Gloria is something I really appreciated - you and I both know how rare female protagonists are in the world of science-fiction and cinema.

Colossal left me with a lot of dark questions, but that's okay. I enjoyed it thoroughly on a Thursday evening with a large bowl of chips in front of me, and if that doesn't justify the accurate rating of this movie, I don't know what does. 

Mashiat Lamisa believes in unicorns, flashlights and everything nice. Prove her wrong at mashiatlamisa@outlook.com