War of the Colossal Beast is a sequel to Gordon's earlier The Amazing Colossal Man (1957), and it picks up where that one left off. However, the film features a different cast. It was distributed theatrically by American International Pictures as the top half of a double feature with Attack of the Puppet People.
This sequel has competent acting performances, fair direction and ordinary special effects. It is also an obvious attempt at milking dry an already successful formula.
Unlike the first film, the character of Manning virtually has no dialogue which makes it far more difficult to feel empathy for the character.
The special effects are pretty ordinary by any standards with great reliance made on double exposure shots. However, quite a good job was made with Manning's facial make-up and the audio of his character's grunts and groans which effectively contribute to the "horror" aspect of the film.
The film is short enough as it is but unfortunately much of it consists of flashback footage from the first film which merely serves to pad the movie.
Despite the film's title, the Colossal Beast does not really engage in much of a "war" with anyone. For much of the time we see Manning being captured, him lying on his back and some military vehicles being maneuvered into position.
The War of the Colossal Beast does serve to highlight one theme that threads itself through many aspects of life in any era. Namely, how we choose to deal with big and seemingly intractable problems which are often of our own making.
