You won't believe your eye! (Monsters Inc. (DVD))

Member Name: mpeh

Product:	Monsters Inc. (DVD)
Date:	18/02/02 (137 review reads)
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Being a six year old trapped in a twenty year old's body is no laughing matter. No I'm serious I'm actually six. The front I am forced to put on to convince the world that I am actually a (nearly mature) twenty year old is in fact merely a matter of necessity and not personal preference as my flatmates will all no doubt testify to. Thus when my looker afterer (sorry the word is usually girlfriend) told me that we were goign to the cinema I was concerned that it may be to see one of these grown up movies that usually has a deep message and depressing comments on real life. Imagine my joy when I discovered that in fact I was to be treated to an animated movie from the creators of Toy Story.

Monsters inc. tells the story of two monsters James P. Sullivan or Sully for short (he's the big blue hairy one) and Mike (the small green one with one huge eye, come on don't tell me you haven't seen the posters) who are employed by said corporation. The basic premise is that there is a parallel universe to our own which can be accessed from the other side, via any cupboard door. This alternate universe is populated by monsters, most of whom live in the big city Monstropolis. Living 'normal' lives and doing whatever it is that normal monsters do requires power in the same way our cities require electricity. The company that provides this power is Monsters inc. We scare because we care, and their source (fuel?) is screams: The screams of innocent human children. So Mike and Sully (our heroes) are a team, not only a team but the team. Every day Sully goes to work with Mike who revs him up and then sends him through various doors to unsuspecting childrens bedrooms where he scares them to his utmost ability and collects the screams. Sully is the top scarer, he collects the most screams and therefore provides the most power for Monstropolis of any monster and he is fast closing in on the alltime scare record with Mike his trainer/ manager.


The problem is that Monstropolis has a power crisis. Children just aren't scared as easily as they used to be what with later bedtimes, more television and a general increase in cynicism. Sometimes monsters who go through a door to scare a child get scared themselves because for a child to touch a monster means death. All it takes for a monster to be
destroyed is for the child they are trying to scare to touch them. So if any fragment of our world, like a loose sock, travels back through a door into the monster world it has to be dealt with like a bomb by the CDA- the Child Detection Agency who are brutally efficient.

The fun starts when an evil bad guy, a rival of Sully's, the second top scarer with his eyes on the record, does some out of ours unauthorsed scaring ad accidentally (and unknowingly) allows a two year old girl back into the monster world, a dangerous threat to all monsters? Well that's what the film's about.

This film does bear a resemblance to Toy Story, mainly in that it is an animated adventure aimed at children. Where Toy Story explored the deeper issue of redundancy and replacement of purpose in someones life (Woody obviously) and then the pressures applied by social groups and external situations as well as the budding friendship pictured between Woody and Buzz Monsters inc. takes a simpler approach, the bad guy is a bad guy not just someone who sees the world didfferently than the heroes. The issue being explored, grounding the film and giving it depth, is the discovery of deeper truths, a rearrangement of personal priorities due to realisations. Now although one of the things that made Toy Story so good was this deeper underlying compelx issue the fact that Monsters inc. takes the simpler approach is no bad thing, in fact it allows the viewer to revel in other parts of the movie lke sheer charm.

In some senses it would be easy to say that this film is less sophisticated than Toy Story- certa
inly the funnies are more up front and more easily accessed by children, but there is an underlying understanding in the film's production that makes it seamless and smooth. It really does take you along with it in the way a fast paced book picks you up and drags you right through. By keeping it simple Monsters inc. increases it's charm and humour and displays a sophistication of film making rather than humour or plot. This will appeal to most adults as well as most children.

It would have been very easy to over 'cute' this movie, there is the huge potential for making the monsters too adorable and the human child, Boo, so sweet as to be nauseating. Although some people may say that this did in fact happen I would disagree, you are lead into the 'awwww' factor slowly and with real purpose, as you discover it so do characters in the film and so the character's gradual change of perception is matched by the audience's.

The animation is, unsuprisingly, superb. Fortunately the animators haven't tried for absolute realism, the lighting effects, shading and shadow are all so realistic as to be unnoticeable unless you consciously think about them. On the other hand the background scenery is not done in such a way as to mimic reality whilst still retaining that animated look. this works really wel, you don't go to watch an animation to see something that could be a live action film and when you don't get it I don't think thatshould be criticised. That said this is a huge step forward in animation, especialy Sully's fur, it does look great, it reacts to wind brilliantly, well looks as if it does, the animated none visible not at al real wind in teh film that is. You know what I mean! The lighting and shadow on it must have taken for ever to program into the computers responsible for the animation. That said it wouldn't have seriously affected the film if the fur hadn't been that good.

>What makes this movie so good are the host of little touches. Starting even before the film there is an opening feature, 'The birds', a classic animation to music which really sets the mood. Then the opening titles are done with good humour and some more simple but effective animation. From the very beginning of the film the clever script is equalled by the attention to detail of the animators. The best scene is probably the set piece chase through all the doors into various rooms (the in joke here is that some of the locations they travel to have views of the Disney theme parks in Paris and Florida), it's an absolute hoot and makes full use of all the sophisticated animation techniques without overdoing it or smacking of 'showing off'.

As in Toy Story the creators of the film saw fit to entice teh audience into staying in their seats for the credits by running a series of outtakes as if the animated characters were in fact real actors who made real mistakes and jokes on a real set. Very amusing and some of the jokes here are more sophisticated than the ones in the film. A really nice last touch.

One last note, in the credits at the end of the film there is a list of production babies (babies born to crew whilst the film was in production). The list is about fifty names, that's a whole load of babies born during production! Maybe the folks at Pixar had more fun than we thought!

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