Scary little creatures

By Diane Garrett

Monsters Inc. turns the bogeyman into an affable company man flummoxed by interacting with the very children he's supposed to scare. This core joke--how terrifying little kids can be to adults--is sure to amuse grownups in the audience, but it also provides rich comedy for the younger set, much of it revolving around the frantic efforts of the supposedly scary monsters to cope with a two-year-old girl named Boo.

It won't take viewers of any age long to realize these creatures aren't all that scary. Like the playthings in Toy Story, these monsters have everyday lives and personalities. Instead of relying on cuteness to survive, however, these creatures depend upon their ability to frighten. Monsters are supposed to be scary and in Monsteropolis, just like Hollywood, scaring's big business. These monsters just collect energy-filled screams, not box office bucks.

Monsters Inc.'s leading men fall into the classic mismatched buddies category. There's lumbering Sully (voiced by John Goodman), the top scare producer at Monsters, Inc. and friend to all, and his cohort Mike, a much shorter motormouth voiced by Billy Crystal. The duo is aiming for the all-time record when the tyke scampers into their lives, turning everything upside down in the process.

Kids, monsters believe, contaminate and so the appearance of any outside the scaring rooms is treated with alarm. As Sully and Mike struggle to herd Boo back to her room, they're also dodging the snaky Randall (Steve Buscemi at his silky best), who also happens to be Sully's chief rival.

Natch, once the two monsters spend more time with Boo they realize she isn't so scary after all. Exasperating, maybe, not but frightening. They also stumble onto a plot to extract scares from children in an even scarier, mechanical function and learn the boss (James Coburn) isn't as kindly as he seems.

Long before a dizzying chase scene through a world of doors on a conveyer belt, viewers will be able to see where Monsters, Inc. is headed. Subtle, it's not.

There's a sunny message behind the movie that cynics decry as overly Disneyian. That may be, but the movie's still a clever romp with enough layers to amuse parents as well as kids. You probably don't have to live in L.A. to get the comparisons between movie test screenings and scream focus groups, or to nod knowingly at the boss's laments about kids being harder to scare these days.

And is it really that bad for a movie to celebrate fun? It almost seems like corporate philosophy for Pixar.

The animation's predictably top notch--a few years ago, they wouldn't have been able to animate that fur or Sully's lips in such expressive fashion--and the voice work aces, with Jennifer Tilly once again proving her voice is made for cartoons.

Yes, it could have been a bit leaner and the jokes a little faster a la Toy Story 2 but I'll take this form of family animated fare above any rivals on the big screen lately.