Monsters, Inc. (2001)

Hail Pixar

I love Pixar. I'll just come right out and say it. When this company first came out with Toy Story, A Bug's Life, and Toy Story 2, they were deemed wizards, and rightly so. They concocted tales that were universal, involving, and magical. These days, I might call them engineers. They have great movie-making down to an exact science. Everything including script, animation, and vocal performances have been honed-in to the point where we can be sure that excellent entertainment will emerge. With a Pixar movie, I know I can pay full admission and get my money's worth.

Monsters, Inc. continues the tradition of Pixar's high-quality, computer-animated fare. The premise is similar to Toy Story in that it deals with what exists in a child's imagination. This time it's about the monsters that hide in a kid's closet. Monsters, Inc. shows us that there really are monsters coming in to scare the children, but their goal is to collect screams as a power source for their monster world. They're actually afraid of children and believe that they possess deadly germs, but they must go in and do their job for the sake of powering their world. Monsters, Inc. itself is the power company and energy factory of the city of Monsteropolis.

The monster world is a world created by high imagination, and some of the funnest scenes in the movie are the opening ones, familiarizing the audience with this environment and allowing it to revel in all of the humorous touches found within. The monsters, each and every one, provide droll surprises. They can have any number of eyes and limbs. They can be furry and they can be made of goo. One of my favorite touches was a female character who had snakes for hair. Not only did she have personality, but her snakes did too (they looked quite anxious when someone suggested a haircut). The method for entering the human realm, and for entering a child's bedroom in particular, provides another opportunity for ingenuity. Doors are hung and accessed just like clothes on a dry cleaner's rack. In a huge factory room, the doors are brought down, mounted, and powered on, turning them into portals to a child's room via the closet door. A lot of fun is had with this concept as the movie continues.

As usual, the characters are strong and the success of the story depends on them. Therein lies the evidence of the Pixar writers' brilliance. With all the crazy new things a fully-imagined world could provide, it would be easy to fall back on the gimmicks of monsters and doors for a story. But the story isn't about the world -- the world is background for the characters, and that's the way it should be. Once again, the writers have created well-developed characters, and the main ones are given the right amount of humanity. The story is about Sulley (voice of John Goodman), a giant blue-furred beast who is Monsters, Inc.'s star employee. He has a partner named Mike (voice of Billy Crystal), a diminutive creature who looks like an eyeball with arms and legs, and a rival named Randall (voice of Steve Buscemi), a lizard-like creature who can effectively turn invisible. Sulley has the current scare record, and when Randall tries to claim that record by cheating, Sulley's inadvertant intervention allows for a little human girl to enter the realm of the monsters. At first, Sulley and Mike are extremely frightened of her, but once Sulley sees how harmless she is, he grows a bond with her and even names her "Boo." The filmmakers do a good job showing how Sulley starts out as a lovable lug just doing his job only to learn the disheartening consequences of his vocation. A lesser movie would have started Sulley off as a jerk who had fun maliciously scaring children, but Monsters, Inc. does well in showing him as someone who is initially well-intentioned, and then learns to change for the better anyway.

The second best character portrayal might just be Boo herself. I don't think there's ever been a more adorable animated 2-year-old girl. Monsters, Inc. does a terrific job in making sure that Boo does not come off as annoying. She acts like a real baby girl and, as such, is as endearing as one. Just look at the expressions on her face -- they were just perfect, there's no other way to describe it. If you don't come away from the movie loving little Boo, you don't have a heart. Seriously.

After all I've described, there's still more in store in this movie. It's quite packed for a 90-minute tale, capped off by a sequence that can be described as the ending of Toy Story 2 meets the ending of Being John Malkovich. Some people could say that perhaps there's some weaknesses showing, with style and story elements borrowed from Pixar's previous efforts and some details in the end that don't make sense logistically (e.g., the "banishment" punishment just isn't very strict), but that all feels like nitpicking. The main thing is this: Pixar knows its audience, doesn't talk down to it (no gross jokes, no smarmy hidden subtexts), gives it a whole new world to play with, and delivers more quality entertainment value with a short animated movie than nearly every other big studio-produced movie. A movie like Monsters, Inc. is a treasure.

Rating: 10/10

©Jeffrey Chen, Nov. 2, 2001

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