Colossal (2016) by Nacho Vigalondo

[cranefly]

Gloria (Ann Hathaway), who has an out-of-control addictive personality, gets booted by her longtime boyfriend and retreats to her hometown to try to straighten herself out.  There, she discovers a link between herself and a Godzilla-ish monster that periodically stomps Seoul, South Korea.

I'm not entirely convinced this is a bad movie.  How's that for a backhanded compliment?  It's a rather pedestrian tale flocked with science fiction, and it feels heavy-handed in its message and in the way characters change their behavior to suit the plot.

Still, it works just well enough that some people might really enjoy it.  At times I felt I was warming to the idea, but ultimately it failed to win me over.

Ann Hathaway seemed an odd choice for the role.  Then again, she seems an odd choice for anything.  In one way she worked.  I kept seeing her bold features stomping the small territory of her face...

[Drunk Monk]

A director named Nacho can't be all bad. I'm a fan of Anne. She's so adorkable.  I enjoyed her kids films and watched two cowboys shag to see her topless. Ok, that came out weird but I do like her work. Jason sudenkis is a great psycho. But this film is so serious with such an absurd premise that would be better served up as parody. Didn't work for me. I just wanted to finish it so I could comment here.

[El Dingo]

I felt like this movie was using a gimmick to make me watch a chick-flick. I didn't care about the protagonists and therefore didn't care about the monsters.

[Greg]

Um, I really like Anne Hathaway. The tattoos bugged me. I kept guessing whether they were done for the film or they were actually her own. If they were her own, the one in the crook of her arm is terrible.

The film blew. It's like they had an idea and then they didn't know to carry it out so they winged it. Usually, when you tell a story, you build the reality to hang the story upon. These are the rules of this reality and we will play by them. They never set any rules, so it was hard to put up with the nonsense. Sudekis was a nut job because they needed him to be a nut job. ("You're just a small person" she cried) How does appearing in Seoul make you a monster in upstate New York? Ug. Just so much stupid.

I know it was supposed to be an allegory for how drinking destroys everything around you and how you can't escape it, but oh it was heavy handed. It was also rough in light of recent events to see the physical abuse that Anne had to go through. Yes, it's a movie, but I didn't like to see it.

I wanted it to better than the posts here and it wasn't

[Drunk Monk]

This almost worked. The alcoholism monster metaphor was intriguing but the attack on Seoul was comical.  Had it been darker in tone overall, it might've worked. Anne was an adorkable alcoholic. That worked. Dan was far from Matthew and Downton, but that was neither here nor there. Jason was a great asshole, even back in his SNL days and now to today as the stormtrooper puncher of baby Yoda.  That worked.  What didn't work was the monsters.  And that was key to the whole premise.

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I just wanted to finish it so I could comment here.

The funny thing is I don't think I ever finished it.  I can't really remember.  To be honest, it seemed more or less new to me overall.  Major memory losses help keep things fresh. Hell if it weren't for the DOOM forum here, I could just keep rewatching House of Traps like the very first time again and again.