Photo courtesy of Disney

Innocent but deadly: Monsters, Inc. employees Mike (left, voiced by Billy Crystal) and Sully (John Goodman) recoil in fear from an approaching child in Pixar Animation's "Monsters, Inc." The film is in theaters today.

Friday November 2, 2001

Grade:

A-

Animation in film always falls short of reality, despite the recent strides made by computer generation. Thus, animation has worked out a comfortable niche for itself in showing audiences fantasy worlds that are out of reality's reach.

Disney used to be the best at this, giving us those fairy tale settings of our youth - and then giving them again and again, as each "remastered" version is released every five years "for the last time."

Now the new animation master is Pixar Animation - the genius behind both "Toy Story" movies and now "Monsters, Inc." - although Disney does own Pixar. Pixar takes the tired fantasy-world premise of animation - "in a land far, far away," "once upon a time," et cetera - and revitalizes it for modern audiences.

The worlds of Pixar's films are clever for the way they transplant the norms of the real world into a fantasy one by turning our own way of life into a farce. These worlds spectacularize the ordinary and reverse our expectations. The films show us worlds seemingly right around the corner from our own - worlds only animation can bring us.

Pixar's masterpiece "Toy Story 2" - originally slated for a straight-to-video release - did this. It took ordinary toys and showed us a world that mirrored our own. Never has something with a pull string evoked so much emotion and laughter.

"Monsters, Inc." fits snugly within this aesthetic tradition. The film's premise is simple but clever. The city of Monstropolis is suffering from rolling blackouts due to an energy crisis. The city's power supply is the screams of children, obtained by these monsters sneaking into children's bedrooms through the closet. But since today's children are increasingly desensitized, screams are becoming scarce.

The best "scarer" in the land is Sulley (voiced by John Goodman), always with his friend-co-worker-loudmouth sidekick Mike (Billy Crystal, doing the same schtick he always does). Due to a small mishap during a routine scaring, Sulley lets a child (whom he names Boo) into monster world.

Why is this such a big deal? Well, because, in one of those ironic twists of Pixar films, monsters are afraid of children, terribly afraid. The film's best laughs come from this smart inversion of our expectations in the form of a harmless, nearly nonverbal little girl, who thinks Sulley is a big teddy bear, squeals and laughs and gurgles to the absolute horror of the monsters whose world she has "invaded."

The film's only faults come when it strays from this premise into more conventional animated-film narratives. Most notably, the film undermines its own cleverness with the inclusion of a more-typical villain - a loathsome salamander named Randall (Steve Buscemi). The filmmakers achieved something wonderful in locating villainy in an innocent, little girl, but perhaps because they thought it could not be sustained throughout the film, plot lines about corporate corruption and greed enter the picture in completely mundane ways.

This is perhaps a petty complaint. Pixar Animation continues to make above-par films. It has helped to revitalize animation features. So while "Monsters, Inc." is not quite at the level of "Toy Story 2," it is still great filmmaking.