Hathaway dominates smart, wildly imaginative ‘Colossal’

cynicism and anger as that film reveled in so bitterly, but he’s also not one for easy allegorical equivalencies. Just when you think you’re watching a recovery narrative, he switches up the emotional polarities with much more unsettling and provocative results.

That pivot, as it happens, centers on Oscar, a character who dovetails so completely with Mr. Sudeikis’ natural affability that when he undergoes a change, it’s both virtually imperceptible and shocking. It’s at this point, too, that Gloria comes into her own most fully, her dance with Oscar and the rest of the world taking on higher stakes in terms of her own empowerment and survival.

“Colossal” ends with an epic showdown between people and their inner demons, in a set piece that’s nothing less than the fight for each one’s soul. Or is it Seoul? In this observant, entertaining, wildly imaginative movie, just about everything has more than one meaning.