Colossal Movie Review (TIFF 2016)

Article by Gabe Zia

Lazy Film Critic Movie Reviews

TIFF 2016 - Colossal

So I'm spending the weekend in Toronto to catch some of this films showing at this years film festival, and I just saw Nacho Vigalondos latest film, "Colossal". The film stars Anne Hathaway, Jason Sudeikis, Dan Stevens, Tim Blake Nelson, and Austin Stowell. The film follows a troubled woman in a bit of a bad batch in her life, when she find out she has a strange spiritual connection with a giant monster on the other side of the planet. Now based on that premise alone, I was intrigued, and I gotta say this movie managed to pull it off pretty well.

First off, this movie is a testament to how much of a movie - and particularly its characters - depend on the actors selling the performance. Anne Hathway has shown time and time again that she can play emotionally engaging, complex characters - even if she rarely gets the credit she deserves in my opinion. And Colossal is no exception, in fact with the exception of Interstellar and Devil Wears Prada, it's probably one of my favorites from her so-far. And Jason Sudeikis was also great, playing a role that was kind of different for him. I was actually surprised by how much range he pulled off with this role, it's kind of like Steve Carell in The Way Way Back. It was almost the polar opposite of the type of character he usually plays, and it was refreshing to see him play it so well.

Now, this film is based around an odd concept, and whenever you have a film with a weird premise or overall plot (this film has both), there's two ways you can go about doing it. You can try to execute it in a way thats equally strange (i.e. Wes Anderson movies), or you can do what this film does and try to make it believable. And strangely enough it works, in fact it works really well. The combination of the well written and well executed dialogue and realistic and plausible way in which events play out make the film more believable, despite it being a giant monster movie. If there's any one flaw inherent to this fact it's that the movie being the way it is (in ways I will not specify so I don't spoil it), it feels like it plays it safe. This is, of course, a very minor gripe, and obviously I'm not dissing the film for being the kind of "art house giant monster movie" it sounded like, because I was in no way disappointed that it went the direction it did.

Another thing I have to give this movie props for doing, and doing well, was keeping me completely in the dark. The whole way through, I had no idea where the story was going to go. Of course, I was guessing, but the film was difficult to predict where it was going. And I have to say this is pretty rare, especially for a comedy like this. So to that, I say kudos to the writer of this film for being creative enough to keep my guessing the whole way through.

Final Rating
So I think it's pretty obvious at this point that I loved this movie, maybe not as much as Belko Experiment, but certainly close. I don't know when it comes out officially, but one thing I will say - don't research it. When the trailer comes out, try not to watch it. Go into this movie knowing as little as possible, believe me it's better that way. Colossal is one of the best comedies I've seen all year, and I highly recommend checking it out when it comes out.