Excellent entertainment for kids

"Monsters Inc" is first-rate family entertainment. This Pixar Studios production is visually stunning and shows off digital computer technology at its finest. Its monsters wouldn't scare the average four-year old, which is what the moviemakers intended. This is sheer fantasy, and delightful fantasy at that. Adults should know that the movie lacks the sophistication of "Shrek", "Antz" or other Pixar works like "Toy Story" and "Toy Story 2".

In this highly imaginative tale, those monsters who come out of kids' closets at night are actually residents of Monstropolis, where energy is provided by the screams the creatures elicit from unsuspecting children. Times are tough, though, because kids today aren't so easily frightened. The monsters must never actually touch any child because they believe that human beings are deadly poisonous. So, the beasts are actually more frightened of kids than kids are of them. [Who knew?] Much comedy and pandemonium results when a little child called Boo follows one of the monsters, Sully, into Monstropolis.

For kids, this is one of the best animated features ever made. For adults, it is painless to sit through and, for the most part, quite entertaining.

Pixar's best to date

Monsters, Inc. (Pete Docter, 2001)

Docter gets his feature-length directorial debut after
working behind the scenes on Pixar's Toy Story films.
They took a chance having someone other than John
Lasseter helm this one-- and it paid off big time.

In case you've been living under a rock for the past
six months, a quick plot summary: friends and
roommates James P. Sullivan (John Goodman-- the big
blue hairy guy) and Mike Wazowski (Billy Crystal-- the
eye) work at Monsters, Inc., the company that provides
the monsters that inhabit the closets of human
children. They do this because the sonic vibrations of
childrens' screams are the source of their world's
power. Nifty, huh? They've also been brought up to
believe that being touched by a human is instant
death. Through various machinations, a human child
ends up coming through a closet door and landing in
Monstropolis, the town where the monsters live, and
the news of this has roughly the same effect as a

nuclear bomb threat in the middle of a major
metropolitan area. Guess who gets stuck with the kid
and has to find a way to get her back to the human
world?

Pixar have always been good at balancing the edge
between kid-friendly and adult-oriented, and never
more so than in this movie. There's enough physical
comedy to keep the kiddies happy, while the movie's
main plot and emotional subtexts go way over their
heads and keep the adults interested. Top-notch
casting (James Coburn, Steve Buscemi, and a host of
other top-of-the-B-listers join Crystal and Goodman),
Pixar's trademark cutting-edge animation, and one of
the best scripts in years make this not only another
bullet in Pixar's belt, but the best one yet. **** 1/2

A big Kid at Heart

I was in the library with my niece and she grabbed this DVD. How can you say no to someone with the most adorable eyes. So I checked out the DVD, we went home and had a wonderful, wonderful time. This is the kind of movie you can appreciate no matter how young or old you are. James P Sullivan (voiced by John Goodman), and Mike Wazowski (voiced by Billy Crystal) are monsters who work for Monsters Inc. Sulley is the best at getting his fair share of scares, but he has some competition in Randall who wants to be the top scare monster. The more screams collected, the more energy for Montropolis. The monsters are led to believe that if a child enters their "world" they will be contaminated and everything could be destroyed. The real fun part starts when this adorable human child named Marry (Boo buy Sulley) sneaks into Montropolis by accident. The kids are scared of the monsters, and the monsters are terrifiedof the kids. Sully and Mike try to get Boo back to her world, but she won't leave. Turns out Randall is her scary monster. Also turns out that Randal has a plan up his sleeve to extract screams that could put the other monsters out of work. It's up to Sully and Mike to save Montroplis and Monsters Inc. This is a fun, entertaining film that will leave with a happy, happy feeling when it's all over. Steve Bucemis I the voice for Randal Boggs, and other notable actors are James Coburn, and Jennifer Tilly (who has the perfect voice for animation, she should do more of it!!!) and Bonnie Hunt.

This is an adorable movie. One I will watch again, with or without my niece.