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Since I first saw the teaser trailer for Monsters, Inc., I was intrigued to find out how Pixar was going to pull off a children's movie about a monster- run company in the business of scaring children. Although the concept of having monsters scare children because it is just their job seemed a bit odd to me, the possibilities sounded interesting for the same folks who created two of my favorite movies, Toy Story and Toy Story 2.

With that, I went into the movie with pretty high expectations about how they were going to resolve this seemingly puzzling storyline, knowing they had the tools, experience, and creativity to pull off some surprising stuff. The result of Pixar's five years of labor is a movie that comes up a bit short on the consistent heart and warmth we have grown accustomed to, but which does provide a heavy dose of imaginative design and animation, multi-layered humor, and fun, family-friendly action.

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Set primarily in the "monster world" city of Monstropolis, the movie starts off with an introduction to this huge company town for Monsters, Incorporated. Monsters of all shapes, sizes, and colors inhabit the city, and it is their routine job to scare their assigned human children in the "human world" by magically passing through the children's bedroom closet doors. As it turns out, Monsters, Inc., is the power company for Monstropolis, and the children's screams provide the power for the city. Unfortunately, "kids these days just don't scare as easily as they used to," and the city is experiencing a power shortage, with threats of blackouts.

With the looming power difficulties, Monsters, Inc., turns to its top "scare" team to save the day. The starring duo consists of a big, furry, horned, blue-green monster named James P. Sullivan (Sulley for short, voiced by John Goodman) and his short, green, one-eyed, sphere-like buddy and scare assistant, Mike Wazowski (voiced by Billy Crystal). The only thing in their way of setting the company scare record is a villainous, purple, lizard-shaped rival named Randall (voiced by Steve Buscemi), who will do anything to take over the top spot in the company.

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Just as Sulley and Mike are about to make Monsters, Inc., history, things for the duo start to fall apart when a little human girl named Boo enters Monstropolis through her closet door. Since the monsters believe that humans are highly toxic to them, the two monsters risk their jobs and lives to try to hide and return Boo to her room before anyone finds out. Unfortunately, their plan does not quite work out, and word spreads that a human has invaded the city. The chase to capture Boo, Mike and Sulley begins in earnest, and the somewhat frenetic action continues right up to the movie's heartwarming conclusion.

Even though this is a Pixar movie through and through, it has a much different pacing and feel to it than the three previous films. Some of that difference may be due to the shift in the Pixar's production lineup for Monsters, Inc. For the first time, long time Pixar director, John Lasseter, has moved into the Executive Producer seat (along with screenwriter Andrew Stanton), and another experienced Pixar native, Pete Docter picked up the film's directorship along with co-directors Lee Unkrich and David Silverman. This change seems to have injected the film with a bit more action but at the expense of the strong, coherent emotional ties that are prevalent in the Toy Story films and A Bug's Life.

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What ends up happening is that -- rather than feeling emotionally involved with the characters throughout the story -- you only really feel for them at a few key points, with the strongest and best executed emotional scenes being the last 10 minutes or so of the movie. While this type of come-and-go emotional connection does not detract from the overall enjoyment of the movie, it does differ from what most people are used to expecting from Pixar.

Some things have not changed in this film, including the wonderfully clever in- jokes and cross-movie character / set piece appearances, humorous cameos, amazing character animation, and incredibly detailed sets and environments. As with Toy Story 2, you need to be vigilant and keep your eyes open for all of the Pixar film and cultural references. I am sure that shortly after the movie's debut, MousePlanet's MousePad discussion boards will be bustling with threads containing lists of these references. It is a lot of fun to see how the animators and set designers have creatively blended all of these into the scenes, and it will provide a reason for folks to go back and see it again.

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I have always been enamored with Pixar's animation capabilities, and Monsters, Inc. did not disappoint me. With each new film, the computer capabilities have grown, leading to an increase in the animation's complexity. As I had expected, the surface textures, reflections, transparencies, lighting and shadows throughout the movie were spot on, and together, added strongly to the plausible impossibility of the film. The detail of the character animation was equally impressive, and the subtle, unconscious facial and body movements that we associate with humans are superbly transferred to the computer models. Additionally, the big character animation tool that was refined for this film was for fur animation, and Sulley's fur, all 2.3 million or so strands, is by far the most realistic looking I have seen in computer animation - it even gently traps snow flakes!

The sets and environmental animation are generally bigger and more complex than those of Toy Story 2. The amazing luggage- sorting scene at the airport in Toy Story 2 almost pales in comparison to the roller- coaster- type ride that Mike, Sulley, Boo, and Randall take through the colossal Monsters, Inc. doorway warehouse. Rather than several hundred pieces of luggage simultaneously moving around the screen, the warehouse has what looks like thousands of doors zipping around on suspended tracks. It is a scene that would be absolutely impossible to construct in any other medium, and it provides a great sensory punch during the chase sequences.

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As with all of the other Pixar films, the audio effects and musical accompaniment are just as critical as the visuals. If you have ever watched the Bug's Life collector's edition DVD with just the isolated musical score or the Toy Story 2 collector's edition DVD with its the isolated sound effect track on, you understand what an impact these two ingredients make on a film. Fortunately, both Randy Newman and Gary Rydstrom return to provide the film's excellent musical score and sound design, respectively. They both provide great little touches throughout the movie, and while Newman's work aids the underlying emotional flow of the film, Rydstrom makes all those monster sounds, children's screams, and incidental noises quite believable.

Monsters, Inc. delivers something very familiar yet different. While I found that some of the emotional pull of the film a bit short of my expectations, there was plenty else for me to enjoy, and much of what makes a Pixar film a "Pixar film" is present in full force. For children, the action, humor, and characters should prove to be a big hit, but, as a word of caution to parents of young children, I am pretty sure that a few scenes in the movie will probably frighten or upset some toddlers. Recovery from the scares should come quickly, though, as the film does not really allow the fear to set in before it is offset by a typically humorous counter-event.

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There is enough here to make this an enjoyable movie for everyone in the family, and even though it is not quite as solid as Toy Story 2, I am certainly looking forward to seeing it again soon with my family.

You can write Kevin Krock at dockrock@mouseplanet.com

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Adrienne Vincent- Phoenix writes about the Monsters, Inc.,
experience at the El Capitan