Monsters Inc

Peter Doctor, David Silverman, Lee Unkrich, USA, 2001, 92 minutes

Robbed, I say, robbed at this years Oscars by Shrek, this week Filmsoc presents what is rightly now the benchmark for American animation. Shall I bother with the storyline? C’mon, you’ve all seen it, haven’t you? Oh, for god’s sake.

There’s an alternative world where monsters live quite happily in a society much like our own. The only major difference seems to be that their main energy source is the screams of human children. And here Pixar cleverly feeds into even our adult horrors. We all had those nightmares of what would come out of our bedroom closet doors – we knew there were monsters there, even if our parents didn’t believe us. Pixar proves once and for all that we weren’t being irrational and childish, it’s all true. (Although I have to say that my monster never looked as cute as the employees of Monsters Incorporated, who have the responsibility of collecting screams to convert to energy).

However, the world of Disney can never be too black, so of course the monsters are actually more scared of us than we are of them, hence the hilarious contamination swat teams that swoop in when human articles are accidentally brought into Monstropolis.

The heroes of the piece are Sully (voice of John Goodman) a huge blue / green fluffy thing, and Mike, essentially a green eyeball on legs, voiced by Billy Crystal. They naturally screw up by inadvertently bringing a human child into their world. Mayhem ensues in true slapstick cartoon fashion. The child, Boo, is cuter than cute and was voiced by Mary Gibbs, who was only four when she made the film (awww).

The relationships between the characters are better developed than Shrek, the storyline actually exists, the pathetic reliance on scatological humour is absent (a big plus in my world) and overall you just care more about this film than a big green ogre. And hey, if you think I’m wrong then you should have watched Shrek in Freshers Week shouldn’t you!

An added bonus (and please god we get it) is the short animation before the main feature. It’s called “For the Birds”, it won the Oscar, and dammit, it is three minutes of sheer brilliance.

Review by Claire Devlin
Written for EUFS Programme Autumn 2002