Monsters, Inc.

The more I see of Pixar Animation Studios, the more I realize it is Disney's last, best hope for redemption

Minor spoilers

When I was very small, there were monsters in my room. Not in the closet, where most monsters hide; no, mine used to enjoy hanging out under the bed and lurking behind the bedroom window. If I hadn't had protection, I would have been sucked dry by vampires or spirited away by huge spiders before I reached my sixth birthday. Luckily, I could count on my imaginary friends—big, gentle giants who would stand guard next to my bed while I slept.

The scariest of all recurring monsters even followed me into my dreams—a horrifying beastie that was mostly one huge, all-seeing eye. It petrified me beyond screaming; to this day, memories of it still give me the willies. So it is perhaps not surprising that I feel an overwhelming urge to hug the good folks at Pixar Animation Studios for managing to blunt and dissipate a long-standing childhood trauma. In Monsters, Inc., the new Disney/Pixar feature film, they've managed to create a character that, while visually familiar, is basically a harmless, lovable little fella.

This innocuous green cyclops, Mike Wazowski (voice of Billy Crystal), is part of a two-man—err, sorry—two-monster team working at the Monsters, Inc. plant. Just as in the human world, the hidden city of Monsteropolis relies on power to function—only this world gets its power from the screams of terrified children. That's where Mike and his partner, James P. "Sulley" Sullivan (voice of John Goodman), come in. Sulley, a shaggy eight-foot horror with claws, horns and fangs, is the power plant's number-one Scarer; his job is to shamble through closet doorways and give children the night terrors, all for the sake of his city's power needs.

This doesn't sit too well with the second-best Scarer, Randall Boggs (voice of Steve Buscemi), a jealous chameleon-creature who wants more than anything to be number one at work. In fact, one day after hours Randall secretly opens a door into the human world in order to rack up some extra screams and beat out Sulley. Instead, he makes it possible for the unthinkable to happen: a human child enters the monster world.

Children are terrifying to monsters—they're thought of as dangerously toxic—and a HazMat-suited government agency known as the CDA (Child Detection Agency) is vigilant in ensuring Monsteropolis remains uncontaminated by even the smallest bit of child flotsam. So when a tiny, dark-haired toddler wanders into the Monsters, Inc. plant and instantly becomes attached to Sulley, it's a cause for massive alarm. Somehow Sulley and Mike will have to find the door to this little girl's closet and return her home before major panic breaks out.

Watching this film, especially in light of the previews attached to it, I've come to the conclusion that Pixar Animation Studios is the only thing keeping the Walt Disney Company from financial ruin. These days Disney's traditional animation studio is pretty much washed up—whether shamelessly stealing plots from foreign animation studios, as in Atlantis: The Lost Empire, or pimping out mainstay characters in watered-down sequels, as in Peter Pan in Return to Neverland, Disney animators appear to have run out of steam.

Pixar, on the other hand, has created a fresh and thoroughly enjoyable film with a big heart. Monsters, Inc. is more of a lightweight confection than either of the Toy Story films; it's also the first Pixar feature not to be directed by John Lasseter (although he is listed as an executive producer). What it lacks in story depth, however, it more than makes up for in animation quality and sense of fun. The upbeat, jazzy soundtrack by Randy Newman is reminiscent of classic Warner Bros. and Pink Panther cartoons. There's some hilarious cameos and in-jokes, including an Abominable Snowman that's a clear tip of the hat to Rankin-Bass animation, a scene that pays homage to Chuck Jones' cartoon "Feed the Kitty," and a sushi restaurant named Harryhausen's after the great stop-motion monster man. (Alas, no "outtakes" in this print of the film; here's hoping Pixar adds some later in the run.)

The animation, as one might expect, is near-perfect, with even better human models than in Toy Story 2 and a diverse range of scary-looking critters. The little girl, nicknamed "Boo," is just darling and every inch a real toddler, right down to her amazing "escape artist" abilities. As for Sulley—well, not since Sesame Street has a monster been so unabashedly lovable. Sulley may be the number-one Scarer, but with all that luxurious, ice-blue-and-violet fur and big, expressive eyes, you just want to cuddle him. He's exactly the kind of gentle beast who would stand by a child's bed to keep the bad monsters at bay.

Come to think of it, Sulley looks kind of familiar, too...

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