Flak Magazine: Review of Monsters, Inc., 11-9-01

Isn't it time for Pixar to experience a failure? If not a failure, then at least something less than an overwhelming success? Apparently not, and it never will be time as long as they keep making such visually beautiful and perfectly scripted films as Monsters, Inc.

Monsters, Inc. falls right at a moment when Hollywood studios, vying for animated blockbusters, are putting all their faith into innovations in computer animation. Wavier hair and more detailed backdrops serve as tools for the latecomers to draw in audiences. Meanwhile, Pixar not only beats them at their own game, but also sidesteps the idea that the central competition is visual by centering its latest film on wonderful characters and a meaningful plot.

As a kind of partner film to the Toy Story movies' tales of toys coming to life, Monsters, Inc. explores the other principal childhood fantasy — the monsters in the closet. The film looks at the topic from the other side of the closet door, which opens into the city of Monstropolis. It's a city literally powered by the screams of children, and it currently faces an energy crisis, in no small part caused by the disillusionment of youth — kids are harder to scare these days. That's why Sulley (John Goodman) and Mike (Billy Crystal), two monster factory workers, have to keep up their record pace of scream collection.

Everything gets thrown head over heels when a precocious little girl named Boo makes it through to the world of monsters. She causes havoc among monsters, who think all children are deadly to the touch. Sulley and Mike desperately try to return Boo to her room, becoming her reluctant caretakers and protectors in the process. Sulley, especially, forms a bond with the little girl over time that makes him question not only her dangerousness but also his own choices of career and life.

This all occurs in the beautifully constructed reality of Monstropolis. The challenge that Shrek and Final Fantasy presented in creating visually complex computer animation, it must be remembered, was originally thrown down by Pixar. It still leads the way. Almost flauntingly, Monsters, Inc. gives its main character flowing CGI hair over his entire body. It falls to the side, blows in the wind and catches the snowflakes of a blizzard. This was accomplished by assigning the hair its own imaginary gravity and wind resistance. Before, as with Stuart Little, hair was animated in clumps. Now, Pixar has strengthened the ties not only between computer animation and traditional claymation, but also with real-time puppetry. Where other studios have made tiny advances in intricacy, Pixar leaps ahead with a veritable paradigm shift in animation.

But even if that proves the case, it will still be the second most important innovation in Monsters, Inc. Director Pete Doctor took control of Monsters after his work as a writer and story artist on Toy Story, with boss John Lasseter and writer Andrew Stanton now watching over as executive producers. All three men understand that visual novelty comes second to good story and good characters. Those areas are where Monsters, Inc. is truly groundbreaking.

The innovative character is Boo. There is no way for such an adorable character to exist without years of technical work from hundreds of people. Every gesture she makes recalls a real toddler. Every sound she "speaks" is endearing. (Sound technicians had to chase after the equally precocious toddler, Mary Gibbs, with a boom mic to get Boo's dialogue.) The craft of film almost reaches a kind of pinnacle with the character of Boo. Some see film as a process of controlled creation; some see it as catching the uniqueness of an accident. Boo represents both of those things, a kind of wonderful re-creation of something exceptional in reality.

As a whole, the story, too, innovates over what has come before, especially in what it conveys through animation. Monsters, Inc. is mainly about Sulley's growing affection for Boo. This is shown sweetly and subtly. Even when he reaches the point of instinctively protecting her, Sulley still must struggle to reach the point of protecting Boo at all costs. It's sad and beautiful, and it can only exist in full force in the simplicity and innocence of a children's movie, proving that the genre isn't just for children. Such purity and goodness in film, such a total lack of sarcasm and cynicism is the real advantage of Monsters, Inc. over its competition. Hopefully, this, not greater realism, will be recognized as the gauntlet Pixar now throws down for others to follow.

— Andy Ross (apross@earthlink.net)