Aaah! Real Monsters!

Rating: 9/10 (5 July 2002)

Hooray! A new Pixar! And it's a scream. Literally. You see, there ARE monsters living in our closets. Well, not precisely living there, but they do come through the closet door to collect children's screams which they need to power their city, Monstropolis. Of course, little kids are also said to be highly toxic to monsters, so those are just as afraid of children as vice versa. Imagine the panic when it transpires that one of those disease-carrying creatures is loose in Monstropolis. Aahh!
After Shrek upped the ante in CGI technology, Disney and Pixar could not well sit back and let Dreamworks have the first Animated Oscar without a fight. As a result, they surpassed everybody's expectations - and Shrek - by a long shot. The got the wake-up call in time, and - even if the Academy Awards tell us otherwise - this round goes to Disney. Much of the success of this movie is, of course, the merit of the voice cast. Like Billy Crystal came to realise, Mike Wazowski may be green, bald and not even have a profile, but he clearly walks like Crystal, talks like Crystal, IS Crystal. Sulley is a very lovable monster and hero (he's welcome in my closet any time), while Boo is just adorable. And then there's Steve Buscemi's evil slimy rotten villain of a lizard... In short, this is not only animated feature at its best, this is a well conceived film with a solid story and well fleshed-out characters. On top of that, the people at Pixar chose to go the extra mile in giving us a couple of hilarious take-outs after the credits. You can't possibly ask for more.