Monsters Inc is a company which scares children to get their screams to convert into energy.

The best scarer in the company, blue and purple-fluffy Sulley, meets little girl (Boo) who is not scared of him. Sulley and Mike Wazowski (green one-eyed monster) attempt to get her back through the door from which she has escaped, but are hindered by the machinations of bad monster Randall who sounds irritatingly like Sherman in American Pie.

"Hey, I don't remember Monsters scaring children in the movies. In my day they concentrated on scantily clad teen girls. Kids just grow up so fast these days."

"Never trust a man in a suit with eight claws as legs."

"The old Addams Family joke reworked for a whole new generation."

"Been there, bought the bendy toy, bought the happy meal, saw the movie at the cinema, bought the DVD, bought the book, lost the book, bought the book again, bought the DVD with the extra special super premium content they brought out 6 months later, went to the web site, downloaded the screen saver, bought the computer game for both the PC and PS2, bought the VHS just in case the DVD ever broke, bought the breakfast cereal, ate the breakfast cereal, tried a new breakfast cereal I would never have tried before had a character from this movie not been on the front, bought the jewellery, bought the Monster Incs masks and makeup kit, did everything in fact other than kidnap a child."

"So, human children are highly toxic? They never tell you this at school, is it a cover up?"

"It's the merchandising that annoys me so. When they brought out Jaws, had McDonalds done a happy meal of that we all would have been too frightened to ask for one! Damn the kids today."

In an attempt to cover up the disappearance of Boo, and the bad publicity it would bring, the owner of the company, Waternoose, catches her with the intention of killing her.

Sulley and Mike save Boo and return her to her house. The door is then 'shredded' to prevent any further problems. Sulley has a splinter from the door and manages to secretly go back to see her... "Kitty!"

A harmless movie which will probably make children slightly less scared of monsters. This could be a bad thing if you are using this to keep them off the roof, still, hey this is a market economy and there was money to be made.

Whilst most Hollywood mainstream cinema today is focused on making a turn on the investment, there can be fewer movies more designed for sell through marketing than this movie. Shame the story still needs a bit more to it.

It is a simple tale told using nice characters. Still not a patch on Toy Story which is brilliant.

October 5 , 2002