Monsters, Inc. in 3D

Love it or leave it, 3D films are here to stay, at least for now. We have seen a ton of films in this process, whether they be new or films of the past reprocessed in this format. Certainly the animated corale has seen this i.e. "Beauty and the Beast", "Finding Nemo", "Toy Story", etc. But these films certainly are worthy to be presented in 3D. So why stop there when we can revel once again with the incredible Pixar Animation Studios production of "Monsters Inc. in 3D".

This centers on Monstopolis, a city of monsters without humans and more to the point, the city's power company, Monsters, Inc. The city is powered by the screams of human children when these monsters enter their 'doors'. But it seems that kids are becoming more desensitized to being scared which is a direct threat to the existence of Monstopolis.
Enter the lovable, but confident, and tough, furry blue behemoth-like giant monster named Sulley (John Goodman) and his wise-cracking best friend, short, green cyclops monster Mike (Billy Crystal), discover what happens when the real world interacts with theirs in the form of a 2-year-old baby girl who Sulley has named Boo (Mary Gibbs), who accidentally sneaks into the monsters world with Sulley one night. And now it's up to Sulley and Mike to send Boo back in her 'door' before anyone finds out, especially two evil villains such as Sulley's main rival as a scarer, chameleon-like Randall (Steve Buscemi), a monster which scares Boo a bunch, and the boss of Monsters, Inc., Henry J. Waternoose (James Coburn).

Others to round out the cast are Jennifer Tilly as Celia, Mike's girlfriend, Bob Peterson as Roz, the paper work control freak, John Ratzenberger as The Abominable Snowman, Frank Oz as Fungus, Daniel Gerson as Needleman/Smitty, Steve Susskind as Floor Manager, and Bonnie Hunt as Flint.

This was incredibly well paced by director Pete Docter ("Up" '09) and co-directed by David Silverman ("The Road to El Dorado" 2000, "The Simpsons Movie" '07), and Lee Unkrich ("Toy Story 2" '99, "Finding Nemo" '03, "Toy Story" '10). It was equally well written by by Andrew Stanton and Daniel Gerson which is based on an original story by Docter, Jill Culton, Jeff Pidgeon, and Ralph Eggleston. Again, as I've mentioned before, how can these guys at Pixar take such a simple premise-- monsters in the closet, and create a script with such depth, humanity, hilarity, and character development, and be entertaining at the same time? It boggles the brain.

I'm not an advocate of films in 3D, primarily because so many are done for profit reasons, but this clearly is more enhanced in this process, because these type of films were created for this process. With this in check, one can not only go down memory lane, but can do it enjoying the ride all the way.

Out of 4 Stars: 4                       Rated: G                        92mins.