If you have small children, movies such as this are worth their weight in gold: the kids love it (our two year old can barely start the day without at least seeing scare trainee Mr. Vile whose friends call him "Phlegm" and his ill-fated run through the bedroom simulation), and since the kids love it, you'd better get used to the idea of YOU watching it OVER AND OVER AGAIN.
And here Monsters, Inc. (along with the Toy Story movies and the outstanding Shrek) really shows its mettle: even for my (somewhat addled) parental brain, this film stands up to repeated scrutiny: I think I could probably recite the entire script verbatim and I still get a kick out of it. Partly it's the characterisation - Goodman and Crystal are as good as you'd expect, but the secondary characters are their equal - the adolescent door shredders and, of course, Mr. Vile are amongst my favourites. Every aspect of the film rates highly: the script pops and fizzes (probably thanks to Crystal's ad-libbing), the computer rendering is brilliant (though I still say Shrek is the undisputed CGI heavyweight championship of the world), and the grand scheme of the film - its look and feel, is just remarkable.
Viewers who complain that the darker aspects of the story weren't adequately explored seem to have missed the fact that, first and foremost, this is a story for very small children. And besides, there's no way I'm marking down a film that guarantees me a half-hour lie-in on a Sunday morning just because it isn't nasty enough.
Two nitpicks (neither of which rob the film of the five stars it deserves): Firstly, the standard version I bought isn't the full widescreen version (this wasn't made clear on the tin, and even if it was, it is a curious and rather cynical decision on Disney's part), and secondly, to get the movie to play you have to scroll through a bunch of other Disney trailers - there seems to be no way to avoid these (other than impatiently cueing through them). This is standard Disney practice - although what they think it will achieve is beyond me, no matter what they do I'M NOT BUYING TARZAN - and it is irritating as hell.
But as soon as the family sees Mr. Vile hopping round the room frantically removing jacks from his arse, all is forgiven.
