Return of the age-defying monsters
Every time the studios dust off another picture for conversion to 3-D, it reminds me that the format isn’t perfect for everything. Animated films like Monsters Inc., the recently rereleased Finding Nemo and the upcoming Little Mermaid are natural choices.
But Top Gun, which comes to Imax 3-D in February, seems like something of a cash grab, especially since it’s essentially promoting the Blu-ray release.
Ideally, I’d like to see a Hollywood best-of reel of 3-D conversions. Give me Indiana Jones fighting a Nazi strongman in front of whirring airplane propellers, and maybe that final shot of the vast warehouse; the star gate sequence from 2001: A Space Odyssey; and Neo’s training scenes from The Matrix. That’ll do; no need to convert every last frame.
For Monsters, Inc., which also functions as something of a commercial for next June’s prequel, Monsters University, the real eye-popper is the scene in which monsters Mike and Sulley are chasing a runaway child through the Monstropolis door room. This is essentially the warehouse from Raiders of the Lost Ark, combined with a roller-coaster and (if you can stretch your imagination this far) a door showroom.
The four characters (there’s a bad guy in the chase as well) cling to door frames, swing and drop from one to another, and occasionally even leap through them, all while they’re rocketing along a track system apparently lifted from an auto factory that runs at warp speed. It’s a breathtaking ride.
The rest of the movie gains little from the conversion. But — and this is key — the 3-D release also marks the film’s first appearance on big screens in a decade. An entire generation of kids has grown up with no option but to watch the movie on 50-inch home theatre systems. The horror!
Seriously, it’s a charming film that has aged remarkably well, even if the chase sequence does go on a bit once it leaves the door room. John Goodman and Billy Crystal provide the voices of James P. “Sulley” Sullivan and Mike Wazowski, two employees at the eponymous consortium, which provides all of Monstropolis’s energy needs through the power of children’s screams. (Parents will understand.)
The plot doesn’t get very complicated. Steve Buscemi plays a rival scare-collector who’s clearly up to no good. Jennifer Tilly is Celia, Mike’s long-suffering girlfriend, whose snaky hairdo rattles when she’s upset. And Pixar good luck charm John Ratzenberger has a strange, wonderful cameo as the Abominable Snowman.
The plucky score by Randy Newman lends a cartoonish exuberance to the whole affair. There are also some nice gags, like the fact that the top restaurant in Monstropolis is called Harryhausen’s, after the great stop-motion effects guru. On an unrelated note, there’s a trash cube that looks to have been plucked from 2008’s WALL-E, though that can’t be as it would have involved stealing from the future. Unless those teleporting doors really do work …