Colorful, Crazy, and Very Much Fun

Rating: Null/10 (16 November 2001)

When I first saw the ads for "Monsters Inc.", I didn't have very high hopes. Sure, the animation by the great Pixar computer-cartoon gurus ("Toy Story", "A Bug's Life") was impressive as always, and the characters were clever-looking, but the images I saw just weren't zapping me the way I've come to expect from a Pixar film. I went into this one with low hopes, expecting the mildest product from the studio yet.
Well, consider me standing corrected. "Monsters Inc." is second only to the incomparable "Toy Story" as the best picture Pixar has released so far. It's chock-full of imaginative visual moments, quirky characters, unexpected gags, and a surprisingly sincere story about the love between a goofy little toddler and the blue furry monster who befriends her.
The monster is James "Sully" Sullivan (voice by John Goodman), the top scarer at Monsters Inc., a company that collects the screams of children. These screams are needed to power the sprawling city of Monstropolis, an alternate universe where all of our childhood nightmares live just like you and me. Sully loves his job and enjoys working with his partner, googly-eyed Mike (Billy Crystal); the only sour spot on his day is Randall (Steve Buscemi), a menacing chameleonic monster who's desperate to be the top scarer. And of course, like all monsters, Sully is terrified that one of the children it's his job to scare will escape through their closet into Monstropolis. Human children are toxic, dontcha know. Well, if you guessed that a kid makes it to Monstropolis, you're already way ahead of the writers here. Still, the child, a little pigtailed girl named Boo, is not what you expect, and Sully finds himself curiously drawn to her even as the CDA (Child Detection Agency) and Randall are closing in.
All this is presented with real ebullience and flair by the Pixar team, led by "Toy Story" co-writer Pete Docter, here making his directorial debut. This light-as-a-feather bedtime tale is socked home with imaginative animation and character designs throughout. These folks are masters of the tiny detail that does it all; from the three-lensed glasses on a Monsters Inc. assistant to the "rancid garbage" deodorant Mike sprays on before a big date, it all works wonderfully, goosing the humor and giving us a sense of total immersion in a big, funny world.
Enormous credit must also be given here to the vocal cast, who invest their performances with real wit and warmth. Goodman's Sully is a charmer, Crystal is ideal comic relief, and Buscemi provides his trademark slimy bad-guy vibe (this time for a bad guy who is literally slimy). Other standouts are James Coburn as the crablike head of Monsters Inc. and John Ratzenberger as an oddly familiar abominable snowman (think "Bumbles"), but the real stroke of genius here is the use of Mary Gibbs, the two-year-old daughter of a Pixar employee, as the voice of Boo. It is so much more effective and endearing to have a real little girl's voice emanating from this adorable animated creation than if an actor was just doing a little-girl imitation. Pixar's animators make Boo jump and dance, but Gibbs makes her LIVE.
The film is a never-ending series of impressive visual set-pieces, culminating in a wild chase through a gigantic hall of children's closet doors. All of this is set to a lively jazz-tinged score by Randy Newman, who only bobbles the ball in a final number that seems as if it was meant to score a song-and-dance number cut from the film (obvious dance interludes, stuff like that).
My only real gripe with "Monsters Inc." is a rather anticlimactic finish that sends us out on a curiously downcast note. Still, there's so much energy, exuberance, and life racketing around this film that it makes up for the wrong note at the end. Today, as Pottermania takes over American theatres, please remember that Mike and Sully are still holding forth right across the multiplex hall. And remember...they scare because they care.