Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
Here’s our man in Chi-Town with a peek at MONSTERS INC., the new Pixar film, cause for animation geeks everywhere to celebrate. At least... I hope it is. They’ve been nothing but gold so far. Here’s Capone with his take on how they’ve one this time at bat:
Hey, Harry. Capone in Chicago here. I’m still compiling Part 2 of my Chicago Film Festival report (the damn thing is still going; gimme a break dammit!). But before that, I have major scoopage. Unlike some fools who write for this site, I’m not big on telling the tale of how I received access to one screening or another, but I will in this case briefly. You see, I almost never go to press screenings, or screenings set up by studios, or test screening for marketing companies; I go with the public almost every time. I’m not saying I wouldn’t go until any of the more studio-driven circumstances, but typically, I race to pick up passes at record stores, comic book stores, department stores, wherever, and then stand in line for a couple hours on the day of the screening with hundreds of other people. There’s no secret to how I get into screenings, just a lot of leg work.
This time, however, was different. I received a call from someone connected to the Disney organization late last week inviting me to a Midwest representatives screening of MONSTERS INC. “Do you wanna go?” this person asked knowingly. “Hell yes,” I replied. The screening was a 10 am, Saturday morning in a Chicago-area suburb, and was heavily guarded. Fake I.D.s were distributed to the group (which included the future Mrs. Capone and occasional contributor to this site, Chi-Town Charlie, who will once again be my date to this year’s Butt-Numb-a-Thon). Many Disney types were there with their families (I’m glad I got to see this movie with kids in the audience; it makes a difference), but ultimately the theatre wasn’t even close to full when the movie got going. Okay, enough backstory, how’s the movie?
MONSTERS INC, the latest entry from the PIXAR factory, is really great. In terms of PIXAR animation, it’s head and shoulders above either of the TOY STORY movies or A BUG’S LIFE. The humans look more human (but not as realistic as, say, FINAL FANTASY), and the monsters a terrific and plentiful. There is no stinginess when it comes to the abundance and creativity of the monsters. Every configuration of arms, legs, eyes, teeth are thrown into a creature-blender and spit out onto the screen. I’ve never had this much fun just scanning the corners of the screen looking at even the smallest background character. The various skin textures on the creatures are amazing, whether they be scaly, gooey, hairy, or all of the above.
There are no songs in MONSTERS INC, with the exception of a closing credits song penned by Randy Newman and sung by our two lead monsters, voiced by Billy Crystal and John Goodman. I like the fact that there are no songs; I’ve never been a huge Randy Newman fan, although I did have my heart strings tugged slightly at the song from TOY STORY 2.
Put animation and lack of music don’t make for a great movie, and I have to confess after now having seen MONSTERS INC, that TOY STORY 2 is still my favorite PIXAR movie. It just has more heart, and the emotions in it didn’t feel forced. MONSTERS INC wants very badly for you to go reaching for the Kleenex, but it feels a bit forced. Which is not to say the film doesn’t rock on other levels. The story is something of a variation on the TOY STORY theme. There exists another plane of existence inhabited entirely by monsters. These are the monsters that lived in your closet or under your bed when you were a kid. They have normal names, hold down regular jobs, drive cars that look more or less like regular cars, and have energy crises just like us. But whereas we derive our energy sources from various fossil fuels and the sun, they get there energy from one never-depleted source: children’s screams. Monsters Inc., headed by a crab-like creature named Henry J. Waternoose (James Coburn) is the name of a company that collects these screams for energy supply purposes. There’s a scaring academy that monsters have to go through before they can become official scarers. The company has a huge warehouse filled with closet doors that lead to children’s bedrooms. The monsters enter the door, scare the children, and energy is captured by an assistant on the other side of the door. The only catch, we are told, is that the monsters cannot let the children touch them; a child’s touch is death. And even the simple act of accidentally pulling back an inanimate object from the child’s world (like a dirty sock) sets off a flurry of emergency activity at the factory. Contamination is a huge factor in this world.
The best scarer at Monsters Inc. (the one with the most scream energy stored up; slumber parties really beef up your numbers) is James Sullivan (or Sulley, voiced by Goodman), a Bigfoot-like creature with a mean growl but a kind heart. His wise-cracking assistant is Mike Wazowski (Crystal), who is basically a giant eyeball with legs and arms. Mike has a little more luck with the ladies, since he has a girlfriend named Celia (Jennifer Tilly in ultra-vixen mode), who has live snakes as hair. It’s cute when she kisses Mike, because all the snake heads kiss him too. The second-highest scream collector is the slithery Randall Boggs (Steve Buscemi), and he will do any nasty little thing to take the top spot away from Sulley. And during some unauthorized after-hours scaring, Randall accidentally (with the unsuspecting help of Sulley) releases a very cute little human girl into the monster world. Sulley takes it upon himself to hide the girl, whom he nicknames Boo; this is tough to do since she’s a squirmy little thing and he’s not supposed to touch her.
I don’t want to go too much further into the plot, but the film becomes a very funny exercise in hiding Boo from the authorities and Randall, who seems to have designs on the girl for some wicked experiments he’s cooked up. Goodman and Crystal are a natural comedic team. Crystal, in particular, is miles funnier than he was in AMERICA’S SWEETHEARTS, and Goodman does a great job of showing us what a nice guy he is. Sulley’s protectiveness of Boo is at the center of all that heart-string-tugging I mentioned earlier. There’s a really terrific sequence involving our heroes and The Abominable Snowman (apparently all earthbound monsters spotted by adults--like the Snowman, Bigfoot, Nessie--are monsters who were banished from the monster world).
But there’s something about MONSTERS INC. that kept it from being unbelievably great. I loved the thing to death, but it’s not as funny as SHREK, not as moving as TOY STORY 2, and not a poetic as some other recent Disney animations. It’s more of a straight kids movie, like A BUG’S LIFE, which is fine; kids see lots of films too. More than a few of the jokes bombed. As much as I liked the character of Sulley, he pretty much turns into a big wimp by the end. I like the villains of the film, but they weren’t evil enough, which is understandable with a PG-rated film. Maybe MONSTERS INC. Uncensored! will make it to DVD sometime next year, who knows? But my criticisms are forgivable. The film is fun, maybe not quite as likely to get the repeat business of previous PIXAR movies, but still worth an enthusiastic first look. There’s an energy and creativity in this film that I haven’t seen since my first trip to that strange cantina on Tatooine.
Or see my collected reviews at Buffalospeedway.net, and click on Steve@theMovies
Wait a minute... am I one of those fools? Is Capone lookin’ for a throw-down at BNAT? Is he trying to defy Herc? (See how nimbly I drag other people into things for no good reason?) I mean, bagging on Quint... that’s expected, but this... which fools does he mean? Oooohh... come on, Chicago Boy... let’s see what you got...
"Moriarty" out.
