MONSTERS INC

Mike - Monster Inc.
Originally uploaded by ClausM

I was watching Monsters Inc the other day with Léon. Léon loves it because there are good monsters and bad monsters and it is sweet and colourful. There is no way in a million years he can grasp the finer points of the plot because the whole idea of monsters stepping from their world into ours through cupboard doors that they call up in a factory is just too complex for little kids. I remember that even the last time Marcel and Charlotte saw the movie - when they were maybe 7 and 5, they also didn't get the whole door thing. I asked them one night after watching it, what it was about and they told me the basic goodies and badies, but didn't get the doors, the energy crisis or the human kids. So while watching it with Léon, I wondered in fact how old a kid needs to be to understand the plot. When they came in from school I asked if they'd watch it with me, just to test my theory, that even now at 10 and 8, they might not get what is actually happening. Amusingly, they both looked down their noses at me and refused point blank to watch 'that baby movie'. Funny - I guess I'll need to wait till they are adults for them to believe me that it is actually quite cleverly an adult movie and not really a kiddie movie. It'll be fun to watch them grow up enough to have that dawn on them.