SummaryThe Academy Award-winning creators of "Toy Story" open the door to a frightfully funny world of monsters and mayhem and scare up lots of laughs in their new movie, Monsters, Inc. [Disney/Pixar]
SummaryThe Academy Award-winning creators of "Toy Story" open the door to a frightfully funny world of monsters and mayhem and scare up lots of laughs in their new movie, Monsters, Inc. [Disney/Pixar]
It's unfailingly lively entertainment that doesn't stint on (earned) feeling. Ideas about fear of the unknown, industrial corruption, and the splendours of polymorphity are all taken in stride. The balance tilts towards action and gags, and does them gloriously.
A true classic that never gets old despite being perhaps my most re-watched movie. The unique setting and characters are chock-filled with amusing little details that give "Monsters" that prime-Pixar charm that you can't quite get anywhere else.
The whole concept of the film itself is scarily creative. A world where monsters work a 9-5 scaring human children around the world in order the extract power from the children's screams is such a unique concept that it's a wonder Pixar took 12 years to make a sequel and another 7 after that to make a television series. Even the background characters in the original film are full of life and have unique traits to them.
The main characters, one-eyed green ball of charm Mike Wazowski and scaring superstar James P Sullivan are the best duo to ever come out of a Disney or Pixar film (yes, that includes Woody and Buzz). Incredible voice-acting performances by the iconic Billy Crystal and John Goodman bring a stunning amount of life and depth to these two characters that could easily come out flat in the wrong hands. This is Mike and Sully's story and the two characters carry the film as such, although curiously cute human "invader" Boo has more than her fair share of show-stealing moments.
Even after 22 years, "Monster's Inc" is still well worth a watch for its unique world and scarily relatable monsters. This is one that will continue to stand the test of time.
Movies 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.
But 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.
What can there be said about this movie that hasn't been said before? It's a masterpiece. The perfect movie for kids growing up, and it still holds an edge for older audiences with endearing characters, strong values/morals, and fast paced, compelling story. Awesome movie. Monsters Inc is the kind of movie people do yearly reruns of because of it's value. In some sense, it transcends being just a movie.
The best computer animated film of them all, and the most adult
Until now I couldn't bring myself to believe that computer animation was the equal of either stop motion animation or hand-drawn animation. All computer animated films looked a little (usually more than a little) too sterile, many were animated poorly ("Antz", "Shrek", "Final Fantasy"), and even the single unqualified success ("Toy Story 2") provided little evidence that a computer animated film COULD reach the heights other kinds of animation could. "Toy Story 2" had flawless character animation, but nothing as inspired as the best in "Tarzan" (released the same year, although I could have chosen almost any other Disney cartoon to make my point); effective art direction, but nothing to match "Fantasia" or "The Nightmare Before Christmas". And I thought that "Toy Story 2" was as good as the art was ever going to get.
I was wrong. This is far better. And what's more, there's no sense whatever that the script (an unusually rich and uninhibited script) is bumping up against the limits of what the medium will allow. It's now been proven that computer animation CAN be just as good as any other kind. Whether it will be allowed to be in future is another question, but for now, I'm hopeful. What we have here is computer animation's first ENTIRELY unalloyed artistic delight, with every character gracefully and characteristically animated, every virtual set just right and pleasing to look at, and an eye-tickling mastery of colour, light and shade that I thought would forever elude CGI artists.
It's not fair to judge anything good as "Monsters, Inc." as though it were a children's movie, but I can't resist comparing it with "Shrek" - which emphatically IS a children's movie. "Monsters, inc." is admittedly ABOUT children, in a sort of a way. The inhabitants of Monstropolis rely on children's screams for their energy, and the central story is kicked off when one of the monsters accidentally brings a small child (which he calls "Boo") into the city. But we never see things from her point of view. We see things from the point of view of the monsters, who are all adults - and who, like most adults, see children as frightening, almost incomprehensible members of another species. And they ARE. To be sure, Wazowski comes to feel strong affection for Boo, but she never becomes more than a humanoid pet (which is not to demean the relationship). This is a story about adults looking at childhood from the outside.
"Shrek", of course, is a children's movie through and through. Its attention span is short, it has an unthinking mean streak, and children will have a whale of a time watching the central characters (the bigger they are, the more fun it is) act childishly and make poo-poo jokes. "Monsters, Inc." has too much genuine wit, characters too rich, a world with too much depth, and a story at once too coherent and too complicated, to be PRIMARILY a film for children. This is not to say children won't like it. Maybe they will. (Who can say?) Here's the bonus: if they DO like it, it will (unlike "Shrek") actually have a beneficial effect. It will make them less frightened of the dark.
Monsters, Inc. The movie's got a great plot which is pretty much about these scarers and it includes Sully (John Goodman) as the main scarer and Mike (Billy Crystal) as his best friend.
After we get to know these two characters, we later realise that a little girl gets into the monstropolis and they've got to get her back to her door before it's too late.
Sully and Mike have got great chemistry with each other throughout this movie and those two are honestly hilarious characters throughout this movie.
Also, you can tell that the pixar team have put lots of time and effort into making the animation look brilliantly good, especially the fur on certain characters like Sully.
The characters are very memorable and they're not very forgettable at all, the main characters throughout this movie have a lot of heart and soul which I honestly love about these classic Pixar movies.
Finally, all the voice actors suit who they play and they do a very good job on their dialogue and playing the role of their characters throughout this movie.
The humour throughout this movie is honestly great, I actually forgot on how good the humour really was while watching this movie again.
Also, I'm pretty sure right Henry J. Waternoose III is actually a nonce in this movie, he says this exact quote "I'll kidnap a thousand children before I let this company die".
Overall, Monsters, Inc. Is honestly a brilliant Pixar movie. It's got a great plot, brilliant animation, memorable characters, great chemistry between Sully and Mike, all the voice actors do very well in their roles and it's got great humour. It's such a great classic Pixar movie and it's honestly brilliant, it's definitely worth the watch.
Sully and Boo's relationship has some spark, but the supporting characters are unlikable (especially Mike) and the plot is just weak. One of my least favorite Pixar movies.