"Today is bring an obscure relative to work day." Just about flawless animated comedy fantasy.

Rating: 9/10 (25 December 2006)

Monsters, Inc. starts like any other day in Monstropolis for monster friends & work colleagues Mike Wazowski (Billy Crystal) & James 'Sulley' Sullivan (John Goodman), together they work or Monstrs Inc. the company who supply all the power for Monstroplolis by bottling children's screams. Sulley is a top scarer who enters kids rooms through their closets & scares them so they will scream & Mike is his faithful assistant, however there is a power shortage & kids these days just don't scare easily. Late one night while sorting some paperwork out Sulley comes across a young child on the shop-floor, a shocking sight as great care is taken to make sure the kids never enter Monstropolis as the slightest of touches from just one child may be enough to kill a monster. Sulley has to hide the child from the authorities & find a way to get her back to her own room, however he discovers a sinister plot to kidnap lots of children from their bedrooms in an attempt to solve the energy crisis...
Directed by Pete Docter, David Silverman & Lee Unkrich I personally think Monsters, Inc. is the greatest computer animated film I've ever seen & a film that I have great fondness for. The script by Andrew Stanton & Dan Gerson moves along seamlessly & has the perfect mix of humour, action & sentimentality. I loved the relationship between Sulley & little Boo as you can see him warming to her, surely this has to be one of the cutest & most likable on screen pairings ever, I think you would have to have a very cold heart not to feel a little bit of sadness at the end when Sulley has to say goodbye to Boo for the last time. They are also surrounded by some truly wonderful character's & friends, from the extremely funny Mike to his girlfriend Celia, from the slimy bad guy Randall & the adorable Abominable Snowman. I'm not a child, I'm not a teenager & by all counts the people around me keep saying I'm an adult but does that mean I can't enjoy a wonderful film such as this? Why do kids have all the fun? Quite frankly there is nothing that I don't like about this film, Monsters, Inc. is pure lovable brilliance from start to finish & it's as simple & straight forward as that.
The director's do a great job, they fill just about every inch of the screen with fantastic detail & visual delights. There is so much going on in both the foreground, background & corners of the frame, for instance I loved the scene when the blob creature slid over the grate & accidentally oozed down into it plus Celia's individual snake hairdo whom all have personalities of their own & loads more besides. The character designs are the perfect blend between cuteness & sliminess, this being a Disney film everyone is big & cuddly but they have a weird gooey multiple eyes & tentacles everywhere look to them as well. It's obvious that a lot of time & effort went into the production of Monsters, Inc. including the fact that it normally took 11 to 12 hours to render a single fame of Sulley because they animated each of his 2.3 million hair strands individually! You know that literally boggles my mind just thinking about it.
I can't quite believe that Monsters, Inc. had a budget of about $115,000,000, I love the film to bits but all that money?! Every frame is beautifully rendered & animated but why so much? Anyway, the film is an absolute delight to watch & for that sort of cash it should be. Nominated for & won lots of awards including winning an Oscar for Best Music & it lost out to Shrek (2001) on the Best Animated Feature which I am not having at all, Monsters, Inc. beats Shrek hands down as far as I'm concerned, there is no justice. The voice actors add so much to the film, Crystal & Goodman are perfect as are Steve Buscemi & the imposing sounding James Coburn as the villains, Jennifer Tilly makes for a squeaky & cute sounding love interest.
Monsters, Inc. is just about faultless as far as I'm concerned & hopefully it will appeal to the child in most adults while I'm positive any child will enjoy it immensely. It's totally brilliant in every way, there's nothing else to say. More than deserves it's place on the IMDb Top 250 films list. Watch it as soon as you can, that's an order not a request.