Review of Colossal (2017) by Cesar I — 18 Nov 2017

I love genre-benders, dark comedies, and monsters. I even like Anne Hathaway. I so actively hate this movie because it lies to its viewers and, like a terrible mixture of fine ingredients, gets them all wrong and squashes a wonderful possibility.

I'm captivated by the premise, the world-building, and the commentary that the movie is leaning towards. But the film condescends its audience by not clueing them into the program until after it has begun the ham-fisted social messaging.

The comedy evaporates, scenes become smashups from Lifetime specials, a nice character becomes (dun, dun, dunnnn), the real monster, a very cliche psychopath, whose motivations are razor thin. Then the film turns unnecessarily and self-indulgently sadistic.

Most critics seem to like it just because it is surprising; I have yet to see a better reason. Receiving a bowl full of raisins, dogshit, and goo when you order a parfait, is surprising too, and should leave you pissed off as this movie did me.