Monstres, Inc.

While monsters in the closet may seem to be a scary reality for some children, `Monsters, Inc.' makes it light hearted by showing them it's all in a night's work. The characters are as charming as the cast that speaks for them.

It's a learning experience children get to see how an industry works. Monsters, Inc. is an in-genius corporation that has scientifically learned how to channel children's screams into energy that is used for electrical power. It has monster employees, an assembly line of doors (which give monsters access to children's bedrooms), a top-flight training program and some of the top Monsters in the scaring business.

There's a colorful Metropolis, filled with houses, buildings, businesses, cars and everything that makes a city run smoothly along with a population of colorful creatures. One of the colorful groups of creatures is the yellow swat team. Their job is to protect the Metropolis of Monsters, Inc. from human contamination.

But what happens when a human child mysteriously gets through the bedroom door and terrorizes the city with screams and boo's. It's wondrous and funny. In the mist of all this is industrial crime, brought on by greed. But, the story ends on a very happy note.

John Goodman is the voice of `Sulley' a colorful large blue-green ape like monster who's the star Monsters, Inc. employee. He's some type of monster, cut, cuddly, and he has a conscience that leads him to feelings of regret about scarring children. He becomes attached to Boo (voice of Mary Gibbs) a cute, little big-eyed girl who is mysteriously brought to Monsters, Inc. and in his quest to return her home becomes very attached to her.

Sulley's best friend is Mike (voice of Billy Crystal) who's a funny looking green ball with stick legs and one huge eye. His comedy is seen through out the movie. Mike is Sulley's driving force, acting as his agent. Mike's job is to make sure Sulley remains the top Monsters, Inc. employee. But when it comes to laughter Mike proves he's on top.

Mike's girl friend Celia (voice of Jennifer Tilley) is the stylish employee who has Mike's best interest at heart. Her job is to keep him out of trouble.

I give Monsters, Inc. a ten. It is an animated movie that can be enjoyed by the whole family. It makes for great family fun.

Sully and Mike (voiced by John Goodman and Billy Crystal) are employees at Monsters Inc., a scream-fueled plant that provides power to Monsteropolis. Screams are generated by 'scarers' (and Sully is the best), who enter children's bedrooms via the closet and are harvested by their partners (in Sully's case, his best friend Mike). Extreme care must be taken, as children are highly toxic to monsters, so when one is accidently transported to the factory, pandemonium ensues. The film is the fourth of Pixar's full length animated features and like most of the studio's work, is excellent. The story is fun with a clever 'twist' to the ending, the animators manage to inject a tremendous amount of character and personality into the CGI characters, and the choice of voice talent is perfect (I especially liked Steve Buscemi as the chameleonic villain Randall). CGI technology has advanced considerably since the film was released but the imagery still holds up and the vast 'closet door' storage facility is great. Typical of the studio, there are a lot of amusing details in the background that are worth watching for. Good, timeless fun for all ages.

This is a resubmitted comment, the original was removed by a complaint from some anonymous aggrieved party. Let's hope the edits are sufficient this time.

You already know that this is the usual Pixar fare, which is to say that it is excellent, better than any non-Pixar animated film. Sure, you also know that and you probably know the usual reason given: that Pixar spends more time on basic storytelling values than anyone else.

Here are two elements of this that may deepen your appreciation. The first is that Pixar recognized early that 3D animation software allowed two types of advance in the third dimension. The first is obvious, that everything has depth and reflection and shadow more or less like reality.

The second is that once these objects and scenes are defined in the computer, it is no extra work to move the camera anywhere. it can loop and swoop in ways that we never could have before. Pixar decided to exploit this in their storytelling here and later in "Nemo."

Nemo was set in an environment where there was no horizon so the camera could flow and the watery feel of the place could make the unfamiliar fluidity of the camera seem more natural. Here, is where they tested some of those perspectives in the three dimensional door warehouse and the extra dimensions of going in and out. Those scenes make this for me.

The second interesting thing is some competitive background. In those days, there was a shooting war between Bill Gates, financier of Dreamworks Animation (and leader of Microsoft) and Steve Jobs of Pixar (and leader of Apple). This was in the heyday of Gates' dirty tricks and he was intent on burying Jobs forever. Pixar depended on the success of "A Bug's Life" their followon to "Toy Story," so Dreamworks rushed "Antz" -- a cheapy -- to open a week or so before to steal the market.

"Bugs" prevailed, sufficiently at least, and Pixar ramped up for their usual three year development of "Monsters." Dreamworks, getting wind of this, went all out with "Shrek," their "monster" movie that could be released six months earlier. It only took a year because the animation is less perfect. But they were overt in their attack this time: "Shrek" made literal fun of Disney, the Pixar partner. The head guy at Disney was the model for the blowhard King who reigned over a fairytale kingdom populated with -- can you guess? -- all the old Disney characters.

Pixar/Jobs would never do something so spiteful. But perhaps they did subtly appreciate the use of windows and gates to the future that always seemed to go wrong. And now you can too.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

I thought Billy Crystal and John Goodman were great. I like them anyway, but I can't imagine anyone else in their roles. John Goodman comes across as a warm, fuzzy teddy bear type in so many of his roles, and this time he was actually drawn that way. Crystal and Goodman were great together, even when their characters showed signs of not getting along. And Boo sounded so natural, so childlike. There's no way an adult could have done her lines the way they were executed.

And the writing was so intelligent, this movie was not just for kids. There were a lot of clever jokes that kids might not get. Still, the warm and fuzzy qualities of so many of the monsters make this a perfect choice for kids as well as adults, and I really don't get why ABC couldn't give this a TV-G rating. It may have been a little violent or scary at times, but never all that intense. Kids see worse on Saturday morning.

You may admire the hair detail on Sully the Yeti's arm, but you will be amazed at the warmth of characterization in `Monsters, Inc.,' surpassing even the great `Shrek' earlier this year. Goodman and Crystal are a comedic team reminiscent of the zaniest Martin and Lewis days. Crystal's Borscht-belt routines brought smiles even to this jaded and admittedly tough-on-comedy critic. I thought Eddie Murphy's donkey in `Shrek' was smart and funny; Crystal's one-eyed monster is even better with its wry and annoying wit.

Cleaning the environment of child contamination is a hilarious conceit that turns around the usual fears children have of monsters in closets. It is also a chilling parallel to the challenge of removing anthrax from today's letters. Generally, the allegorical underpinnings of animation are natural for the medium, powerful like the images of the novel `Animal Farm' for political and sociological levels of meaning. For example, the endless-door motif in this film is an ingenious metaphor for the scary and glorious possibilities the present and future hold for kids.

Even before you see this feature, Pixar offers the short feature `For the Birds' -- a brilliant takeoff on Hitchcock's memorable film besides being a great commentary on diversity. The expressions around the animated eyes, as the little birds deal with the big bird interloper, are more expressive than those of most contemporary film actors, with the exception of Brando, Pacino, Depp, and Streep.

The short trailer for `Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones' may precede the showing as it did ours for an added delight.

`Monsters, Inc.' is the best animated feature this year and one of the greatest of all time.