Monsters, Inc.

RATING: A+

Monsters, Inc was essentially the first Pixar film after the two Toy Story films that anybody remembers (because almost everyone forgot about A Bug's Life). Perhaps that was because it took things a step further for the company, and came up with some far more creative stuff than they did on their first three movies. 

This movie centers on a world where monsters *do* exist and scare children in the night. And what's on the other side of the doorway? The monster world--and the monster factory called Monsters Inc, where they all scare the kids and the "scream power" is used to create energy for Monstropolis. As one of the earlier teasers put it, "It's nothing personal, it's just their job." And oddly enough, monsters are perhaps even more scared of kids than the other way around--they think they're toxic. "A single touch could kill you!" declares Mr. Waternoose, the CEO of Monsters Incorporated, early on in the film. 

The film centers around James P. "Sulley" Sullivan, the top scarer at Monsters Inc, and his assistant and best friend Mike Wazowski, who provides much of the comic relief. Sulley's just a Scarer--who's getting close to breaking the all-time scare record, rivaled closely by Randall, who has chameleon abilities for some reason. Their life is normal until a kid escapes into the monster world--and suddenly things get turned upside down. 

The movie does a brilliant job establishing the monster world and what things are like there early on, and in a single day of work, we see many of the various possibilities that can occur (including a contamination breach). And just shortly after that, it does just as good a job transitioning to the main plot of what happens when the kid gets loose and the coinciding of that with the discovery of a conspiracy within the company. 

The monster world is *very* creative--we see all various types of monsters (God knows how much time they spent coming up with all them), some of them more briefly than others. Some of them are intended to be more intimidating than others; and others are simply sight gags (at one point, a monster with about 20 eyeballs yells "It's true! I saw the whole thing!"). 

The movie itself is hysterical as well--from the various quick inside jokes/gags to the more blatant humor (usually provided by Mike). Some may also find some humor in how some things in the film can relate to actual politics and such within the real-life workplace. There is also some emotion thrown in with a quite clever plot as well to keep the people who are more interested in substance around. 

Overall, Monsters Inc may not be quite Pixar's best work, but it definitely has some of their better creativity and also one of their more clever plots. It still holds up very well to this day, and it's definitely a movie worth watching multiple times. Course, that's something that can be said for most of Pixar's films, and this one is no exception.