Movie Review: Monster House

Monster House

As a rule, I'm not a fan of animation or kids' movies. But it was a hot weekend, and theatres are air-conditioned, so...

The house the kids in the neighborhood all fear is right across the street from young JD (voiced by Mitchell Musso). JD has made it his business to keep a close eye on the house from the safe vantage point of his own bedroom window. That's how he happens to take note of the latest "victim" of the house and its cantankerous owner, Mr. Nebbercracker (voiced by Steve Buscemi). "One more tricycle" he writes in his notebook as Nebbercracker confiscates a little girl's toy after she inadvertently rides it onto his lawn.

JD's parents (voiced by Catherine O'Hara and Fred Willard) take no notice of his upset or of the crying little girl running from the Nebbercracker house. They're busy packing the car for an overnight trip. Shouting cautions at their son as they pull out of the driveway, they remind him that the babysitter will be there soon. Arriving sooner still, though, is JD's best friend, Chowder (Sam Lerner). Chowder has a new basketball he wants to play with and JD seems willing to be distracted.

The two play briefly, but all too soon the ball gets away from Chowder and — you guessed it — bounces across the street and onto Nebbercracker's lawn. Chowder demands that JD retrieve the ball and JD lets himself be talked into it. But just as he's nearing the ball, Nebbercracker himself comes running out of the house, and starts yelling at poor JD. The boy doesn't know what to do, but just as Nebbercracker really gets going, he collapses and is taken away by an ambulance.

The boys are affected by this, but in different ways. Chowder sees Nebbercracker's absence as a positive thing, while JD feels guilty that he caused the old man to fall. It's just then that the babysitter, Zee (Maggie Gyllenhaal) pulls up in her ramshackle car. More concerned with her social life than with her charge, she gives JD her version of "the rules," and then proceeds to turn up the stereo and talk on the phone.

While JD and Chowder occupy themselves, Jenny (Spencer Lee) is selling candy door to door. The boys, who see her headed for Nebbercracker's door, run outside to stop her. She's having none of their nonsense about the house, though, but then she sees for herself and promptly joins the two in determining just what they ought to do next. In the end, from adults who don't believe them to ridiculous plans they come up with on their own, the kids are now committed to dealing with the "monster house" once and for all.

Filmed using motion capture techniques, Monster House is the most effective animation of that kind I've seen. Though incredible realism has been achieved (the character of Gollum in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, for example, or King Kong himself in the recent remake), those achievements have been against a backdrop of reality. Polar Express, on the other hand, was animated using motion capture and presented within an entirely animated setting, and it made what I believe to be the critical mistake of trying to make its characters seem real. The technology simply isn't at that level (yet), and the deadness in the eyes and the plastic appearance of the skin was a disconcerting distraction at times, at least for me.

In Monster House, though, animators didn't try to make the characters look real. Their features are exaggerated. Their hair is a mop of noodle-like extensions coming off the scalp. The dog is a caricature. Since that was the case, the utter reality of their movements made the animation better while the general appearance didn't distract. The backgrounds (grass, fabric, wood) were real as all get-out, which also served as an enhancement. Motion capture was even used for the "monster house" itself, and while it's fair to say the house didn't look human, it really did look as if it were alive.

The vocal abilities of the actors contributed in no small way to the believability of the story despite the fact it was less believably about a house come to malevolent life. With a good script — not too complex for kids, but yet interesting enough to hold onto a more mature audience — and fine direction, everything in Monster House combined to create a whole even bigger and better than the sum of its parts.

While I was cognizant of the techniques being used for the movie, I was still caught up in the basic storyline, and was amused off and on as well as bemused throughout. Since I don't normally like movies aimed squarely at children, that's saying something. And while I don't imagine I'll be buying a copy when it comes out on DVD at a later date, I can honestly say I'm glad I bought my ticket, whatever my original reasons for doing so.

FAMILY SUITABILITY: Monster House is rated PG for "scary images and sequences, thematic elements, some crude humor, and brief language," and it should be. This is not a movie for little ones. It's frankly much too frightening for that. Parents, one more time: this movie is much too scary for the littlest ones! The fact that it also deals with some fairly complex issues — lost loves, revenge, death, and wholesale destruction — isn't suited to small children, either. But because all of these elements are rendered in animation, and because the plot is kept relatively straightforward, I do think it would be okay for the average 7 year-old or so, unless he or she is particularly sensitive to nightmares. The even better news is that this is a movie you can take your kids to see and enjoy on its own merits for yourself.