At The Movies

Out of the Closet

Monsters, Inc.
(***)

Sasha Stone
Mirror film critic

   There’s something for everybody in “Monsters, Inc.,” an engaging two-year-old for those restless toddlers, funny lines aimed at beleaguered parents, plenty of action and suspense for the pre-teens, and even a subtle message about the energy crisis for the politically active in the group. What it doesn’t have, however, is the same cathartic epiphany that “Shrek’s” ending had. Will “Shrek” become the animated film by which all others are measured?
   “Monsters, Inc.” takes on the irrational fear most children have: that monsters live in the closet and don’t come out until parents have gone to bed and it’s finally dark. It’s the same theme Stephen King and John Carpenter have relied upon to scare older folks. We fear that which we can only imagine.
   These monsters, though, aren’t all that scary. In fact, they’re furry and cute. They’re part of a parallel world where a portal divides them from children and where children’s screams are collected and turned into energy. So this is why monsters exist: because they need the power. They don’t really want or need to scare children.
   The story revolves around the all-too-common buddy combo of the big monster Sully (voiced by John Goodman) and the one-eyed, funnier sidekick Mike (Billy Crystal). Big, little, sincere, funny. Been there, done that.
   The hook is that Sully accidentally becomes the charge of a perky, courageous youngster named Boo. But children are the things monsters most fear, even socks of children must be quickly incinerated by hazmat-monsters in rubber suits. Sully and Mike are, at first, afraid to touch Boo. They are too kind-hearted to turn her in, but they’ve been programmed to fear her kind. Little by little, as they realize that her presence does nothing but make them feel, well, human, Boo and Sully form an attachment.
   Conflict is introduced by way of the evil villain (Steve Buscemi) who wants to use Boo in a series of experiments in order to extract children’s screams. His new monster-world order would, essentially, put the monsters out of their jobs.
   What’s most interesting, on a thematic level, about “Monsters, Inc.” is that it takes on big corporations as the enemy (not bad for a Disney movie). The evil here is that Capra-esque idea of profit over humanity. The good does out and before long, monsters have been transformed and everyone lives happily ever after.
   Billy Crystal’s Mike gets most of the laughs, while Sully and Boo offer the film its sentimentality; it is awfully sweet to see a big, hairy monster care for an unruly toddler. It helps that Boo is absolutely authentic, particularly the moment where she bursts into hysterical tears in that way only toddlers can do — a piercing scream that fills you with the same panic as a car alarm going off in your ear: you’ll say and do whatever is necessary to turn the tears into laughter. Laughter, as it turns out, is twice as powerful as screams are, which is, finally, what the film wants to say.
   “Monsters, Inc.” is made by the “Toy Story” team, and has the same breathtaking animation Pixar is known for. But it lacks that element that made “Toy Story” so special: an inanimate world we see all the time being brought to life. We knew those Toy Story characters well before they became real.
   What becomes our fears, those fears that are manifested into our worst nightmare hiding in the closet, varies from kid to kid. There are no archtypical monsters, scary faces we’d all agree upon. “Toy Story,” on the other hand, dealt with the familiar.
   Ultimately, though, “Monsters, Inc.” fulfills a need audiences have right now to simply disappear into a parallel world where good triumphs over evil. It should be no surprise that the film has made, no kidding, $122 million in two weeks.
   “Monsters, Inc.” will be shoved off the number one spot this week as the steamroller that is “Harry Potter” rolls into town. There hasn’t been a time in recent memory that has so invited children’s fantasy at the cinema. Many of us parents, though we complain loudly at having to sit through them, like the simplicity of pure fantasy they these films bring. It is, of course, the laughter of children, and their freely expressed joy, that brings us out of our worries and into the moment where we belong.