Movie Review: Monsters, Inc.

What Parents Should Know
Parents need to know that this movie is about closet monsters, but from their point of view -- scaring kids is their 9-to-5 job. Kids who are scared easily often come around, especially when the monster Sulley turns into a softy and takes care of the little girl in the story who isn't the least bit afraid of him. However there is one scene where a monster the child does fear straps her to a chair and tries to steel her screams. Kids will find it funny that most monsters fear any contact with kids -- when one monster gets a child's sock on him the whole factory panics and biohazard workers quarantine and shave him. Young kids may need help understanding what the monsters in yellow suits are doing to him and why.

Families can talk about what Sulley learns about kids and how he changes the factory for the better in the end. They can also talk about how each kid was scared by a certain kind of monster. Why was Boo scared of Randall and not Sulley? Why was Sulley considered such a top-notch scarer then? What would make you laugh the hardest if it came out of your closet?

Common Sense Media Review
It turns out, according to this movie by the Toy Story folks at Pixar, that monsters are more afraid of kids than kids are of monsters. But monsters need to collect kids' screams to fuel their world, and children are getting so hard to scare that the monsters are suffering from rolling blackouts. What can they do? Top scarer John "Sully" Sullivan (voiced by John Goodman) and rival Randall Boggs ( Steve Buscemi) work as hard as they can to break the scream-collection record. But when Randall inadvertently lets a human child into the monster world, the monsters find out what being scared is really like.

This movie is utterly delightful. It should be put in the dictionary to illustrate the word, "adorable." It has the same delicious mixture of heart, humor, and technical wizardry that made A Bug's Life and the two Toy Story movies into instant classics. Like Jim Henson, who decided to make his Sesame Street characters monsters so that kids would never be afraid of monsters again, the people behind this movie have created monsters that even the shiest child will find completely unscary. In fact, kids may decide that multiple heads, removable eyes, and hair made from snakes are kind of cute.

Sulley and his nervous sidekick, Mike Wazowski ( Billy Crystal) are just a couple of nice guys proud of their work trying to do their jobs (except for filing the paperwork, which Mike never seems to get to). When Boo (Mary Gibbs) sees Sulley, she runs after him, shouting "Kitty!" At first, Sulley is scared of her, but then he gets to know her and tries to take care of her.

There are lots of terrific DVD extras, including background info, a music video, ideas that never made it onto the screen, and a game. Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland , Toy Story, and Finding Nemo . Other great stories about friendly and funny monsters include Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich , Mommy? and The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything .