Video/DVD Review: Monsters, Inc.
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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?
The monsters in MONSTERS, INC. 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' world is suffering from rolling blackouts. 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.
There are lots of terrific DVD extras, including background info, a music video, ideas that never made it onto the screen, and a game.
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