Monsters, Inc.

Children and movie monsters have so much in common. They feel noticeable. They stand out in crowded areas. They can’t do small-talk with adults. They are always walking over things and breaking objects. If anything goes wrong, they are blamed. Now you can see they also have another trait they share.

Kids are scared of monsters, this we have known before in a handful of comic strips and children books, but according to “Monsters, Inc.,” released in 2001, monsters are scared of children.

This amazing film from Pixar shows that it is true (as any child will tell you) that there are monsters in their bedroom closet, especially after they turn the lights off. What we do not see is that monsters are actually on their job. A closet door, which by day opens to just a closet, at night it goes to Monstropolis, the world of monsters, which is fueled by Scream Heat. The reason why monsters come out of closets and scare kids is to get their screams, which are what power plants in Monstropolis give electricity in order to make sure everything is running, much like how it is in the human world.

As the movie starts, Monstropolis is in trouble: Kids are harder to scare, and there’s a shortage on screams. The speculation is “Rolling blackouts.” The world faces a possibility of an energy shutdown. All of this trouble is put on the table of the leading screamer, Sully, voiced by John Goodman. Roger Ebert describes Sully as “a cross between a gorilla and a bear.” His best friend, Mike Wazowski, voiced by one of the funniest comedians and the late Robin Williams’ best friend, Billy Crystal, is a green eyeball with arms and legs (Billy Crystal described the character as “CBS walking”). Sully is brave and devoted. Wazowski is disturbed, frightened and lazy. Together, they have the scale of work ethics. The receptionist, Celia, voiced by Jennifer Tilly, has a crush on Wazowski. Ebert said, “What she sees in him is beyond me, although if there is anyone who can figure out how to have sex with a green eyeball, that would be Jennifer Tilly. I can imagine her brassy voice: ''Blink! Blink!''” There must be antagonists, and in this film they are Henry J. Waternoose (James Coburn), who Ebert describes looking like “a crab crossed with a cartoon of Boss Tweed,” and Randall Boggs (Steve Buscemi), a snake-like sneak who wants to become better than Sully as the best scream collector. Their fight gets really serious when a human child named Boo, voiced by Mary Gibbs, actually goes through the closet door and enters in the monster world.

“Monsters, Inc.” has the same vibe as the two “Toy Story” movies and “A Bug’s Life” from Pixar, and once again displays the studio’s amazing CGI, which makes a strange look of dimension and movement. Monsters, like toys and bugs, come in every believable shape, size and color, which must have been one of their attractions, and the movie is a joy to look at. Since monsters are scared of Boo, whose name given to her by Sully is a reproach to their job duties, there are screams and chases on both sides of the closet doors. (“There’s nothing more toxic or deadly than a human child,” Waternoose warns. “A single touch could kill you!”) Since we’re on the subject of doors – it looks like they’re made in Monstropolis, to the exact specifications that no one really figures out they come after you buy the house. The funniest part of the film is a roller-coaster chase scene with hundreds of doors on an endless conveyor line that flips at such a fast speed.

Ebert noted, “Voice-over dubbing used to be what actors did instead of dinner theater. Now, with the multimillion-dollar grosses of the top animated films, it's a lucrative job that is finally getting the credit it deserves for the artistic skills necessary. Not everyone is a good looper, and stars like Goodman, Crystal, Coburn, Buscemi and Bonnie Hunt bring a dimension to the film that both borrows from their screen personas and kids them. As for the invaluable Tilly, she has the only voice that has ever made me think simultaneously of Mae West and Slim Pickens.”

Ebert credited, “The animation of Wazowski is interesting because the animators apparently had so little to work with. Instead of an expressive face and a lot of body language, they're given, as one of the leads of the picture, an eyeball. Luckily, the eyeball has an eyelid, or maybe it's a brow, and with this to work with, the artists are able to supply him with all the facial expressions a monster would ever need--especially one without a face. It's a tour de force.”

“Monsters, Inc.” is joyful, high-energy fun, and like the other Pixar movies, has an ongoing stock of jokes and references targeted for grownups (Ebert admitted, “I liked the restaurant named Harryhausen's, after the animation pioneer”)

Ebert ended his review by saying, “I also enjoyed the sly way that the monster world mirrors our own, right down to production quotas and sales slogans. ''We Scare,'' they assure us, ''Because We Care.''”

Like I had hinted at yesterday, this is another one of my absolute favorite Pixar movies. Seeing how I have already gotten to my 500th review, which is unbelievable, I feel I should treat this one with the care and respect it deserves. When I saw this movie years ago when we got it on DVD, I fell in love with it and Doug Walker is right when he said that people need to stop thinking that this movie started the whole monsters coming out of the closet trait. I remember when I was in Elementary School and a few teachers had read to us a book about a boy who talked about a monster in his closet, caught the monster and befriended it. That was the first time I heard of it, but there must be more that came before that. I digress though, you need to see this movie if you haven’t. You will fall in love with it, I promise you.

Look out on Thursday when I will look at the absolute best Pixar movie, which is what I’m really looking forward to in “Disney’s Pixar Month.” Since there aren't many Pixar movies, I have broken up the movies evenly throughout the month so that I'm not posting everyday. I feel I owe it to myself so that I'm not burning myself out.