Colossal

Gloria (Anne Hathaway) is a once-successful writer who has fallen on hard times.  Her long-suffering boyfriend (Dan Stevens) breaks up with her.  Homeless and unemployed, she moves to the small town where she grew up, where she happens to own the old house?  Hmm.  Does she own it?  It is never really explained - or I missed the explanation.  On her second day, she meets Oscar (Jason Sudeikis), a former school mate.  Oscar instantly becomes Gloria's best friend, offering her a job at his bar, providing furniture for her empty house, and inviting her into his circle of friends.  And then the giant Godzilla-like monster appeared in Seoul.  After a bit of experimentation, Gloria discovers that she is the monster!

The movie is not really a comedy.  Sure, it has some comedic bits but it is nowhere near as funny as the trailer led me to believe it was going to be.  This is a movie about drunkards, jealousy, and revenge.  Much as I like Jason Sudeikis, he is entirely too amiable for this role.  Maybe his long stint at SNL has colored my view of him.  Also, for the first half of the movie, he seemed like a comedic sidekick character.

 

The movie has its moments but fell far below expectations.  Oddly, I was reminded of Striptease.  The ad campaign for that 1996 Demi Moore movie also gave the impression it was a comedy, which it was not.  Dump the puerile antics of Burt Reynolds and it becomes a Lifetime movie of the week about a single mother trying to keep her daughter.  Colossal is about an abusive would-be boyfriend trying to blackmail his would-be girlfriend into not leaving him.  It's hard to make that into comic material, even if you include a giant monster in Korea.

 

The best parts of this movie are in the trailer.  Just watch that.