Monsters, Inc.
Originally posted a long time ago on Paul’s Reviews Page
I’ll be rating movies on a three zone, 5-star scale. Each movie will be rated
on “Visual Appeal”, “Audio Appeal” and “Story Appeal”. Each of these three
zones can be rated up to 5 stars (or asterisks…. they load faster than
.GIFs)
Monsters, Inc.
V: *****
A: *****
S: ****
Synopsis: A “parallel Universe” populated by monsters and powered by the screams of nightmare-afflicted children in our world is turned upside down when a child sneaks through the the portal the monsters use to come and collect her screams.
Thoughts: Pixar magic of the highest order. What more do I have to say? Yet another fantastic Randy Newman score. A great story with a great twist. The one Pixar offering to date that really didn’t do it for me (A Bug’s Life) was a bit too kiddish for my taste. While “Monsters, Inc” is no “Shrek”, it does seem to be the most adult-targeting feature from Pixar to date.
While the story, music, sound editing and voice-acting were all top-notch, it really is the character design, animation and simulation (Sully’s fur and Boo’s t-shirt, for the most part) that give this movie it’s heart. Like the two previous Toy Story films, this is a buddy movie in which the buddies learn something about each other and themselves through some unexpected trial. With each successive film, Pixar’s capacity for subtle, expressive facial animation grows by leaps and bounds.
Since PDI-Dreamworks’ “Shrek” is something of a benchmark CA film for me, I’ll mention a few areas where PDI-Dreamworks and Pixar seem to diverge: 1) Realism. From what I’ve seen from the two studios, PDI-Dreamworks has the market cornered. Pixar seems to be content with a certain doll-like aspect to its characters, whereas PDI-Dreamworks seems to focus on skin texture and tone, pliability of skin and plausable deformation in forming facial expressions. There are too many looks and expressions in Shrek for me to count, which set me off laughing or getting all misty-eyed. 2) Story. Monsters, Inc. is something of a departure from the common Pixar formula, in which the thematic content is mostly light. This is the first Pixar film I’ve seen with believably sinister bad guys and starkly dark and frightening content. “A Bug’s Life” discussed death, and I think an ant or two may have gone over the horizon, never to return, but that was nothing compared to the termite battle in “Antz” from PDI-Dreamworks. Personally, I like a little dues-paying in movies I watch. The thing that got me in “Monsters, Inc.” was when Sully was coerced into giving a scare demonstration by Mr. Waternoose, and he inadvertantly exposed Boo to his “Game Face”. This, to me, is like a child seeing what his or her dad REALLY does (or is trained to do) for a living, and dad is a soldier, or special forces type, or some other “ugly” occupation. 3) Characters. PDI-Dreamworks characters, even their fairy-tail creatures, are typically cynical, pragmatic and/or pensive. Pixar’s characters are typically a bit less three-dimensional, although Sully from “Monsters, Inc.” seems to be something of a departure
All-in-all a great flick, one to keep on the shelf at home, even if you have no kids.