Monster Smash (Monsters Inc. (DVD))

Member Name: oldreekie

Product:	Monsters Inc. (DVD)
Date:	05/02/02 (112 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Funny, Cute, Fun

Disadvantages: mmh...

Ah the sweet carefree-ness of childhood, remember? The days were full of fun and hope and sun. Life was good and nothing could convince you otherwise…

Until bedtime, you knew all sorts of unspeakable and unseen horrors awaited. Would your mother believe you when you told her that the reason you were screaming your head off was because there was a huge monster with saucer eyes and giant fangs in the wardrobe or there was a slimy horror with 20 tentacles lurking under your bed, you knew it was there because you could here it whispering in the dark that it was going to grab your leg as soon as you got out of bed and she still wouldn’t believe you.

Well we now have the proof, as if it was needed, that we were right all along in the shape of the brilliant new CGI animated feature from Disney and Pixar Studios, “Monsters Inc”.

It’s all kinda obvious when you have the evidence presented to you but you see, there is this hidden city called Monstropolis where all the monsters live. The monsters have created a clean, safe form of power by harvesting the screams of the children they scare. The screams are captured by a dedicated band of employees at Monsters Inc (motto: We Scare Because We Care tm). However Monsters Inc is running into difficulties as it is becoming harder and harder to scare the more sophisticated kids of today and as a result Monstropolis is facing a power shortage.

The heroes of our story James P “Sulley” Sullivan, a huge hairy behorned blue and lilac monster (voiced by John Goodman) and his roomie, co-worker and best mate Mike Wazowski, basically an eye-ball with legs and a NYC attitude (voiced by Billy Crystal) are Monsters Inc top scare team, Sulley providing the frights and Mike bottling the screams. Sulley is top of the scare charts and fast on his way to breaking the company record. However life as a kiddie scarer isn’t all a bed of roses as Sulleys achievements are vi
ewed with not a little envy by his nearest rival Randall Boggs, a slimey, treacherous Chamelli-monster who has two beady eyes on the company record. However the biggest threat to Sulley comes from the kids themselves for it is well know that kids are poisonous to monsters, one touch could be deadly and even the whiff of a sock is enough to attract the attentions of the boys in yellow, the CDA (Child Detection Agency) who have a fairly extreme and brutal decontamination program.

Returning to the scare-floor late one night Sulley finds that Randall, in an attempt to break the record, has been putting in a little bit of unauthorised scaring and has unwittingly unleashed a deadly force on Monstropolis, in the shape of a 4 year old girl!!!

Well perhaps the little moppet isn’t quite as deadly as they had all been led to believe…

This is an absolutely fantastic movie, just about everything about it works: a very clever central idea, a funny and intelligent script, a big chunk of cutesyness and CGI animation of a stunning quality. I found myself laughing, giggling and literally squealing with delight (not a usual reaction from me, I must admit) throughout this movie. The humour ranges from out and out slap-stick to more subtle little touches such as monsters buying their fruit and veg from a gross-ery (my hyphen), the pedesration crossing saying “Stalk/ Don’t Stalk” and, cleverest of all, calling a restaurant “Harryhausen’s” after the King of the monster flick, Ray Harryhausen. They even manage to solve the mystery of the Loch Ness Monster and the Yeti. And refreshingly I didn’t detect the merest whiff of a fart gag, or heavily disguised sexual innuendo which should please long suffering parents of more sophisticated and worldly children. The movie scores high on the cutesy-o-meter, mostly through the doe eyed little girl, Boo. Although some stone-hearted viewers may find it all a little much,
and certainly it does tend a little towards mawkishness at times, I’d defy anyone not to have a huge stupid grin on their face at the scene where Sulley and Mike are attempting to smuggle Boo back into the Monsters Inc factory, see it you’ll know what I mean. And better pack those hankies for the ending.

As I said the CGI is stunning. All the monsters have a very real quality about them, not realistic as that’s clearly not the aim of the makers but they have substance. The greatest achievement has to be Sulley. CGI has tended to struggle with fur and hair. The problem was cracked in “Final Fantasy” but the animation of Sulleys fur take us into the next stage of the art. I believe there are something like 2 million independently moving hairs on his coat. I can only imagine the logistics in achieving something that must be mind-blowing but the effect is breath-taking; apart from the obvious CGI eyes, Sulley shows very few signs of having been created in a computer. There are loads of little nice touches but hey, modern audiences demand thrills and sceptical and we get it with a frenetic chase through the Monster Inc closet door storage facility. Think the train chase from “The Wrong Trousers” in 3 dimensions and you’re on the way there.

An excellent all-round movie, great laughs, a few thrills, a couple of tears and enough monsters, colour, noise and movement to keep the kids happy.

The movie has a “U” certificate. Absolutely nothing to offend.

Oh and make sure you get to the cinema in plenty time or else you’ll miss the animated short “For the Birds” which precedes the main feature: short, sweet and oh so funny. And don’t leave at the end or else you’ll miss the excellent “out-takes” which run during the credits.

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