Monsters, Inc. (2001) - Another Jewel in the Crown of Pixar

 

You know what just hit me? I really haven't been talking about Pixar on this blog. Outside of the Toy Story marathon I did in preparation for Toy Story 4, and the occasional First Impressions, I haven't talked Pixar that much, and that is a darn shame because Pixar is easily one of my favourite animation studios ever. Pixar literally revolutionized animation with their Computer Graphics and stories that spoke to both the children and adults in the audience. These were the movies that carried Disney through their post-renaissance era and eventually the kind of movies Disney would end up making. Pixar is a really important part of animation history, so I thought it would be a good idea to review one of their movies this time, and since I'm still celebrating getting three-quarters closer to the big one-double zero reviews, let's look at another one of my favourites, Monsters, Inc.

The story focuses on two monsters, Mike Wazowski and James Sullivan, otherwise known as Sulley. They work at, what is essentially a power production facility in the monster world, which is a clever piece of worldbuilding as their world is powered by the screams of children... that sounds really horrible when I say it like that. The two are the top of their workforce, but then Sulley finds a door on the scare floor while working late and accidentally lets a child in the monster world, which is really bad considering this world is afraid of children and sees them as dangerous, deadly and toxic. Sulley and Mike now need to return the child without raising suspicion, but they soon find that there is something much more sinister at work than them. The overall story flows really nicely, you can see how the events lead into each other, and it's pretty genius how they set up the laughter plot point, I will say the reveal is okay, maybe a bit too subtle, but after a couple viewings you do get to notice things like the careful wording of Waternoose when Mike is explaining the situation to him. I don't think it's the best reveal in a Disney or Pixar movie, but it is not the worst.

While I'm on the subject, one thing I want to mention is the ending. I think the ending to Monsters, Inc. is one of the best endings to not just any animated movie, but any movie period. It's a really touching ending, especially when you consider the characters. The characters are really well written for this movie, they don't talk like cartoon characters, they talk like real people, with real quips and backtalk, almost to the point where, even though I hear John Goodman and Billy Crystal, I don't see them, I see their characters. This is a contrast to performances like Jeff Bridges in The Last Unicorn or Orson Welles in The Transformers movie, where I could only picture the actors in the recording booth. You have Sulley, a humble and hardworking guy, and Mike, a narcissistic but generally good person. They're both likeable, but not perfect. I don't think I really appreciated Mike as a character until I watched TheRealJims' YouTube video about the movie. It really made me appreciate the movie in a new way. On top of that, the rest of the main cast is also entertaining, Randall is perfectly sinister and slimey, Mr. Waternoose is authoritative and seemingly friendly, and Roz is just... a perfect character. On top of that each monster has a very unique design, many of which I don't think I've seen in other monster media.

I think animation wise, this is easily one of the best looking animated movies of the 2000s. The character design alone, you can see almost every hair on Sulley, and you can almost feel the scaly texture of Randall's skin. To be fair, most of the environments this movie takes place in are pretty bland, when you think of a monster world you might think of something much more stylized like Nightmare Before Christmas, or Aah! Real Monsters, but I don't really mind the more mundane environments, the interesting and unique monster deigns more than make up for the more mundane world. On top of that, when this movie wants to get visually interesting, it gets visually interesting. The climax of this movie is easily one of the best and most exciting animated climaxes in cinema, and the reveal of the massive door storage area still amazes me to this day. Major credit to the animation team behind this movie.

Ultimately, I don't even know what else to add without stealing lines from other reviews. I mean, Monsters, Inc. is fantastic, and easily one of my favourite Pixar movies, definitely on the same level as Up and Toy Story 3. The story is well written, the characters are likeable, the voice acting is excellent, and the animation is superb, it really is incredible that Pixar was capable of hitting peaks like this early in their history. Really, this is another movie, I really doubt that you needed me, or really anyone, to tell you how good it was, it's one of Disney-Pixar's most popular movies, getting a prequel movie, and a spin-off series on Disney+ which... not really something I'm into, but that's not important. At the end of the day, Pixar really is one of the best animation studios around, and Monsters, Inc. is just one of their many amazing movies that any animation fan must see, if they haven't already. Really, do I even need to say I give it a High Recommendation?