Over the past few years, starting with the Lion King. Disney has been experimenting with different ideas…killing off characters in Atlantis…exploring loneliness in Toy Story 2…dropping musical numbers from it’s animated lineup.
Some have gone over well, but some take some getting use to.
I’ve always loved the Disney music. As a kid, it added quite a bit of enjoyment to their films, and kept the “good-natured” quality to the experience. It made the movie great for kids. It’s still hard to accept the fact that the musical scenes are being pushed back (or out), and that it would not detract from experience.
Toy Story was a wonderful showpiece to highlight the “music-free” Disney movie. It had a great story, clever writing, and a fast pace.
Monsters has all of that plus Billy Crystal…
The Main Characters:
Mike Wazowski – a one-eyed green thing that reminds me of the dancing fig man for Fig Newtons, voiced by Billy Crystal.
James P. Sullivan (aka “Kitty” and “Sully”) – a beautifully rendered beast somewhere between bigfoot, a gorilla, and John Goodman…but with a equally large heart, voiced by John Goodman.
Randall – a bug-eyed reptilian thing, voiced by a bug-eyed human thing (Steve Buscemi)
The Story:
Sully and Mike are the reigning pair of scream-catchers at Monsters, Inc., a facility in the monster’s town which produces electrical power conducted by children’s screams.
Sully wanders in on a door (which they walk through to enter the children’s rooms) after-hours. After opening the door, a little girl sneaks through…something believed to be fatal for their city.
Randall is the villainous creep, who’s played perfectly by Buscemi, who is believed to be after the scream title held by Sully.
That’s all I’ll say, to keep this spoiler-free. :-)
The Good:
The animation is the highest-quality yet. Where Shrek’s animation was somewhat stiff and unrealistic, Monsters shines with gorgeous fur renderings, and fluid movement.
The characters are also great, especially the little girl (“Boo”). She is so cute, both her emotions and mannerisms, that you can’t help but be charmed.
The movie has incredible color, which is a big plus for kids, rendered perfectly for each character.
Billy Crystal’s lines are typical for him, which is to say, are delivered right on cue. He bring a lot of personality to Mike, especially when he gets excited over being in a commercial on TV and on the cover of a magazine (even though he’s obscured by a logo and a barcode).
The storyline (remember, this is a kid’s movie) is fun and fast-paced.
The Bad:
Young kids may be frightened by some scenes, especially the opening monster-out-of-the-closet scene, though everything is ultimately played for fun.
Some violence is in the film, though totally bloodless and cartoonish.
Minor tasteless “burp-humor” joke at the end.
Bottom Line:
Cartoons do not get more fun than this. It reminded me of what it felt like to watch Disney movies as a kid.
Note:
The ’’Mongolia’’ scene from the preview was not in the movie. Hopefully will be on DVD...