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Rating: G
Directors: Pete Docter, David Silverman, Lee Unkrich
Writers: Pete Docter (original story), Jill Culton (original story), Jeff Pidgeon (original story), Ralph Eggleston (original story), Andrew Stanton (screenplay), Daniel Gerson (screenplay)
Stars: John Goodman, Billy Crystal, Mary Gibbs, Steve Buscemi,
Release Date: November 23, 2001 (United States)
Run time: 1 hour, 32 minutes
THE PLOT:
via wiki:
In a world inhabited by monsters, the city of Monstropolis harnesses the screams of human children for energy. At the Monsters, Incorporated factory, skilled monsters employed as “scarers” venture into the human world to scare children and harvest their screams, through doors that activate portals to children’s bedroom closets. The work is considered dangerous, as human children are believed to be toxic and capable of killing a monster through physical contact. Energy production is declining because children are becoming less easily scared, and the company’s CEO, Henry J. Waternoose III, is determined to prevent the company’s collapse.
One evening after work, top-ranking scarer James P. “Sulley” Sullivan discovers that an active door has been left in the station of his rival, Randall Boggs. He inspects the door and accidentally lets a young human girl into the factory. Frightened, Sulley unsuccessfully attempts to return the girl, who escapes into Monstropolis, interrupting Sulley’s best friend and assistant Mike Wazowski on a date at a sushi restaurant. Chaos erupts when other monsters see the girl; Sulley and Mike escape with her before the Child Detection Agency (CDA) arrives and quarantines the restaurant. Forced to keep the girl hidden in their apartment for the night, Sulley soon realizes that the girl is not toxic and her laughter is able to generate more energy than screams.
At work the next day, Sulley and Mike disguise the girl as a monster. Mike wants to send it back in any old door, but Sulley wants to put her back in her real door. While Mike seeks out her door, Sulley grows attached to her and nicknames her “Boo”. Randall, waiting in ambush for the girl, captures Mike by accident and reveals his plan to kidnap children and harvest their screams using his new invention, the Scream Extractor. Sulley rescues Mike, and they set out to inform Waternoose of Randall’s plan. Finding Waternoose in a scare simulation room, Sulley demonstrates scare methods to new employees at his insistence, and a frightened Boo shows herself. Waternoose, who reveals that he is working with Randall, kidnaps Boo and uses a door to exile Mike and Sulley to the Himalayas.
Sulley finds a way back to the monster world, but Mike refuses to go with him. Entering the factory alone, Sulley saves Boo from the Scream Extractor, but Randall tries to kill him. Mike returns to reconcile with Sulley and exposes Randall, who pursues them and Boo into a door storage vault. They are caught up with by Randall, who is defeated after being attacked by Boo. The trio then hurl Randall through a door to the Everglades, which they then destroy, leaving Randall permanently trapped in the human world.
When Mike and Sulley locate Boo’s door, Waternoose, accompanied by the CDA, brings it down to the scare floor to arrest Mike and Sulley. Mike distracts the CDA while Sulley and Boo escape, leading Waternoose into the scare simulation room. Waternoose reveals his conspiracy to kidnap as many children as necessary to keep the company afloat. Mike records the conversation, exposing him to the CDA, and Waternoose is arrested. Undercover CDA director Roz allows Sulley to send Boo home, but her door has to be demolished. Sulley sadly says goodbye to Boo before her door is destroyed.
Afterwards, Sulley retools the company’s power generation method to harvest children’s laughter instead of screams, as laughter is ten times more powerful. With the energy crisis solved, the factory is now focused on making children laugh to collect energy; Mike becomes the company’s top comedian, and Sulley is named the new CEO. Some time later, Mike surprises Sulley with Boo’s rebuilt door. Sulley enters the door and reunites with Boo.
My Review
I loved Monsters, Inc. It’s funny, intense, fast-paced, and it has a lot of heart. Visually, the movie is typical of Pixar in that its animation looks great – even more than twenty years after its release. It is also a masterclass in how to tell a horror story in a very safe and child-friendly way. Interdimensional monsters, who creep into the bedrooms of sleeping toddlers to harvest their fear, decide that their dread harvest is insufficient to meet their needs. As a result, they begin making plans to kidnap small children from the human world, take them into the monster dimension, and to thus increase their intake using new technology. When one of the monsters rejects the plan, he faces both exile and attempted murder. It’s rated G!
The movie makes itself palatable for all audiences by showing very little intentional scaring and by injecting a lot of humor into its most tense moments, culminating triumphantly in Boo beating up her monster tormentor, Randall The two monster protagonists are furry and funny rather than feral and ferocious. The two leads were very well cast. John Goodman has a calm, warm, and safe voice – perfect for the loveable Sully. Billy Crystal’s Mike is about as non-threatening as a voice can be. The story diffuses the monsters’ vocation by making them every bit as afraid of children as children are of them. Most of the screams caused by Boo were among the funniest parts of the movie. The bad guys never got so far along with their plans – on screen at least – that the moment was too much for anyone except maybe the very young. That said, this same plot could absolutely have been the basis for an R-rated horror film.
The friendships between Sully and Mike, and also Sully and Boo, are the heart of the film and they drive all of the action of the tale. By making love and friendship the focal point of the story, the movie creates a safe emotional pocket for kids to hide themselves while bad things are happening around them with the rest of the plot. The good guys always felt nearby, and the bad guys were always just far enough away to be threatening but not too much so.
Monsters, Inc. has become the subject of innumerable fan theories and conspiracy theories over the last two decades, including among them a theory that the Monsters are time travelers in the interconnected Pixar universe, that the character Boo grows up to be a character in Pixar’s Brave, and that the film’s plot is a subtle nod toward the real world adrenochrome controversy (and if you don’t know what that is, I envy you.)
Overall, I enjoyed this movie a lot more than I expected to, and I fully recommend it for anyone above about age seven or older.
Have you seen Monsters, Inc.? What did you think?
Aw, I love this movie. I watched it as a kid and again as a teenager and enjoyed it both times. I’m sure I’d love it as an adult too.
It’s really well done. The world can be a scary place, and some people in it can be scary, too, and I thought that the story did a great job of showing that in a safe way. I also liked that it showed so well that assumptions based on appearance can be very wrong.
I think so too, the fact that the message is so on point is why I think we can still enjoy the movie even as we get older.