Movie review – “War of the Colossal Beast” (1958) **

Sequel to The Amazing Colossal Man (which I haven’t seen yet) has the amazing man back from the dead. He is captured and put in an aircraft hanger, tied down – at which point (this was 30 minutes in) I realised “oh yeah they’re going for a King Kong type thing”. It took that long for the penny to drop because up until then the sense of adventure and mystery had been mild, with some bad low budget 50s acting (particularly by the girl who plays the Man’s sister and her love interest army officer; they have this great scene where he says her job as an ad copywriter should take her mind off things and she says she’ll never be able to write the words “gigantic” again). We don’t even see the Man until 20 minutes in – although it is kind of cool to see Glen Langan with his twisted face make up and nappy and all the 50s sfx. After that though things pick up – there’s a flash back to the Man’s adventures from the first film, and he goes on two rampages, winding up holding a bunch of kids in a bus. It’s a shame they couldn’t deal with the tragedy of the lead character more – have him fall in love with someone instead of his dull sister. I enjoyed it more as it went on and it was more about the Man; loved the ending where it briefly flares into colour.