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100It's the Pixar animators who keep grown-ups as riveted as the kids with visual marvels that dazzle and delight.
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88The climax, featuring what's essentially a suspended roller coaster of closet doors, is as thrilling as it is imaginative.
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88Movies like Monsters, Inc. literally make you feel like a kid again, marveling at the joyously inventive sights before you, and that's a feat that should not be taken lightly.
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88Smart, funny and ingeniously detailed with terrific vocal teamwork.
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88"Shrek" is a scintilla funnier, "Toy Story 2" a hair's breadth more poignant, but "MI" is every bit as imaginative and lovable as these other contemporary animation classics.
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88Though the comedy is sometimes more frenetic than inspired and viewer emotions are rarely touched to any notable degree, the movie is as visually inventive as its Pixar predecessors.
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88It comes from Pixar, the animation studio that scored with the "Toy Story" series and "A Bug's Life," and it has more zip and a tad less soul than those predecessors.
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75Monsters, Inc. is cheerful, high-energy fun, and like the other Pixar movies, has a running supply of gags and references aimed at grownups.
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75The movie's cutest twist is that the monsters are more scared of kids than kids are of them, because they think human children are toxic.
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Funny and sweet enough to delight kids and inventive enough to satisfy adults.
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80Confirms that despite all the technical tools at their disposal, one thing counts head and shoulders above razzle-dazzle eye candy (or anything else, for that matter): the story and characters, and Monsters, Inc. introduces worthy additions to the Pixar pantheon.
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60The funny lines fall flat and the relationships and conversations among adult characters are straight out of 1950s sitcoms. Now that's scary.
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78The spirited interplay between Goodman and Crystal is both wacky and, dare I say, charming.
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83Not quite up to the exalted level of the two predecessors ("Toy Story" and "Toy Story 2"), be assured it's still the most eye-popping and thoroughly entertaining animated film to come down the pike so far this year.
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75Monsters, Inc. has got that swing, that zippity, multilevel awareness of kids'-eye sensibilities and adult-pitched humor.
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100The story's charming, the set pieces are wildly inventive, and even the throwaway one-liners, about everything from movie-animation pioneer Ray Harryhausen to the old Oscar Meyer jingle, are hilarious.
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100As giddy and antic as any great Warner Bros. cartoon of the 1930s and '40s -- it bears seeing more than once, if only to allow for the sight gags that play second fiddle to the plot, a rarity in animation -- but also resonant and real. In other words, it's the perfect movie.
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90There hasn't been a film in years to use creative energy as efficiently as Monsters, Inc.
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80Much more kid-oriented than any other computer-animated movie thus far. In other words, it's much more Disneyish. I enjoyed it.
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80An unprecedented friendship between a monster and a child leads to an amazing chase scene.
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70It's a nice movie. But Disney has never learned that "nice," especially in comedy, is a negative virtue.
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70Doesn’t have the warmth of the Toy Story pictures, but it still boasts a very entertaining slapstick-farce structure and some neat hairy, oozy, tendrilly creatures.
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70Clever and jokey in a vaudeville sort of way, but lacks the heart and sheer imagination of the company's best work for Disney, "Toy Story 2" and "A Bug's Life."
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60Though it has its charms, Monsters, Inc. does not measure up. As a childhood entertainment it is certainly fine, but Pixar's celebrated lure for adults is largely absent.
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50But Monsters, Inc. -- directed by Pixar soldier Pete Docter, not by master digital comic John Lasseter -- turns out to be stingy on context, commentary, and the prism-ing view of pop culture that made the earlier films mint.
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88The movie may not be perfect, but it's jam-packed with goodies -- like a breakfast cereal fun-pack with a prize on every box-top.
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75Rarely does an animated character merge as perfectly with the persona of the actor providing his voice as the star of Monsters, Inc. does with John Goodman.
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63By any other standard, the creatures in Monsters, Inc. would be impressive. But by the high standard Pixar not only set itself, but invented, they're only ordinary.
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67It's a good movie, mind you, with great bits in it, but it still falls short of rapture.
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90A terrific piece of work: smart, inventive and executed with state-of-the-art finesse.
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90Who doesn't need what this movie has to give?
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80"Shrek," this film's prime competition for the first Animated Feature Oscar, is a synoptic parody of fairy tales. In Monsters, Inc. the gags aren't as spot-on but the technique is miles ahead. The vision is grander and warmer.
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80Whatever its ultimate position on the greatest hits list, Monsters, Inc. is supple and technologically sophisticated entertainment.
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60Marvels of animation abound in Monsters, Inc. -- when it comes to irreverent humor and real heart, Monsters doesn't quite measure up.