Monsters Inc.

A movie like this really makes me appreciate the art of 3D animated films.




Again, for a movie that's over 20 years old it hasn't aged a day. Taking a very neat and original idea of monsters working in a factory setting to supply power through screams, Monsters Inc. is definitely one of the high notes of Pixar in my opinion. John Goodman and Billy Crystal play working partners/roomates Sully and Mike who as their day to day work life proceeds gets vastly interrupted by the appearance of a young girl in the monster world leading them to try to get her home safe. Something I realized is Pixar has this style to their movies where regardless of the world you are introduced to and regardless of plot within that world, you roll with it completely. You really do not need great detail because the picture they paint works and is easily understandable. A monster filled city, screams supply power, they believe children are akin to walking nuclear fallout, they even throw out a tidbit of there being a power supply crisis, but again you don't need reasoning as to why it is the way it is. And the story moves at a great pace for a 90 minute film, with no scene seeming like filler or something that shouldn't be in the final cut. The monster designs are very creative, colorful, and memorable with simple personalities and good performances. I don't need to tell you John Goodman is really good in this movie, he just works so effortlessly and he has that charm about him in every role, and what a remarkable computer engine they had to animate Sully convincingly cause hair is friggin' impossible to animate correctly. Billy Crystal is a good comic foil to John's straight man persona, with fast line reads, jokes thrown in along the way, and yeah you can argue he's a bit of a dick to want to dump this kid anywhere but he's never unlikable or too much to impede your enjoyment. It's great to see Steve Buscemi and John together again in a picture, and what a perfect voice for this slinking evil monster Randall, and again unbelievable praise to the animators for getting a character who can camouflage look flawless. Mary Gibbs as little Boo, God help me this girl is like a terminal overdose of pwecious cuteness, now that being said I would massacre trillions for her and I dare even say it is impossible to not like this character. Plus the fact the filmmakers had to just follow her around with recording equipment to get her unintelligible speech in the movie just cracks me up. Also shoutout to Jennifer Tilly, marvellous as always to see her and a wonderful character design akin to Clash Of The Titans. Talking of which, I'd be a fool not to bring up the restaurant Harryhausen, because I'm me and I'm a nerd for this kind of stuff, watch his special effect riddled movies for God's sake! But yeah, visually the movie is so colorful and inventive and it genuinely does look spot on even today. The comedy works but I also feel again it's not a major part of the movie, it occasionally made me laugh but the story and the characters are why this movie is still as loved today. I surprisingly was quoting a fair bit of it even though I haven't seen the movie in the better part of almost 20 years, so clearly it leaves an impact. I very much enjoyed this film and had a real good time revisiting it. All in all I give it 4 stars, 8/10, and we're jumping ahead to the not too distant past for one more Pixar picture tomorrow.