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Monsters, Inc.

 
Movies:

Monsters, Inc.

 
  • Directors: Pete Docter; Lee Unkrich; David Silverman
  • AMG Rating: starstarstarstar
  • Genre: Children's/Family
  • Movie Type: Family-Oriented Comedy, Creature Film
  • Themes: Fighting the System, Being Trustworthy, Faltering Friendships
  • Main Cast: John Goodman, Billy Crystal, Mary Gibbs, Steve Buscemi, James Coburn
  • Release Year: 2001
  • Country: US
  • Run Time: 92 minutes
  • MPAA Rating: G

Plot

After exploring the worlds of toys and bugs in the two Toy Story films and A Bug's Life, the award-winning computer animation company Pixar delves into the realm of monsters with its fourth feature. Hulking, blue-furred behemoth James P. "Sully" Sullivan (John Goodman) and his one-eyed assistant Mike Wazowski (Billy Crystal) are employed by Monsters, Inc., a scream processing factory. It seems that the denizens of their realm thrive on the screams of kids spooked by monsters lurking under their beds and in their closets. It's the job of Sully, Mike, and their co-workers, including sarcastic Randall Boggs (Steve Buscemi), crab-like CEO Henry J. Waternoose (James Coburn), and lovely snake-headed receptionist Celia (Jennifer Tilly) to keep the frights flowing. When Sully and Mike are followed back into the monster world by a very unafraid little human girl named Boo (Mary Gibbs), they are exiled to her universe, where they discover that such a modern-day mythological specimen as the Abominable Snowman is a fellow refugee. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

Review

Even with a pastel universe of computer tricks at their disposal, the story is what really pushes a Pixar movie over the top -- what made the Toy Story movies so grand, and what left A Bug's Life short of greatness. Monsters, Inc. may burst at the seams with visual stimulants, but it's the delightful premise, fleshed out through a superior script, that helped scare up one of the largest opening weekends ever, paving the way for a monster-sized hit. That creatures of all shapes and textures live harmoniously in a candy-colored neighboring dimension called Monstropolis, scaring children for a living to harness the vital energy in their screams, is the jumping off point for an odyssey of jokes, thrills, and sentiment. Of course the monsters look great -- mostly cuddly types, in keeping things appropriately Disney -- but it's the factory where they work that really tests the animators' boundaries. Reminiscent of the alien-run Men In Black headquarters, the airy building full of blinking contraptions really comes to life in the jaw-dropping finale, which features a chase conducted on an assembly line of whizzing closet doors. Even while dragging just a tad in the second act, Monsters, Inc. never stops delving deeper into the giddy logic of its world. The vocal talent is all good, but the infant chosen to voice Boo (Mary Gibbs), the toddler who crosses over, trumps them all, emitting such tickling gurgles that she's even cuter than the monsters. Monsters, Inc. boasts an unexpected fringe benefit to parents: Once their children come to consider those shapes lurking in the shadows as fuzzy and lovable, a lot more of them may sleep through the night. ~ Derek Armstrong, All Movie Guide

Cast

Jennifer Tilly - Celia; Bob Peterson - Roz; John Ratzenberger - Yeti; Frank Oz - Fungus; Daniel Gerson - Needleman & Smitty; Steve Susskind - Floor Manager; Bonnie Hunt - Flint; Jeff Pidgeon - Bile; Sam Black - George; Kay Panabaker

Credit

Dominique Louis - Art Director, Tia W. Kratter - Art Director, Ruth Lambert - Casting, Mary Hidalgo - Casting, Matthew Jon Beck - Casting, Pete Docter - Director, Lee Unkrich - Director, David Silverman - Director, James A. Stewart - Editor, John Lasseter - Executive Producer, Andrew Stanton - Executive Producer, Jean-Claude J. Kalache - Lighting, Randy Newman - Composer (Music Score), Harley Jessup - Production Designer, Bob Pauley - Production Designer, Darla K. Anderson - Producer, Gary Rydstrom - Sound/Sound Designer, Michael Fong - Special Effects Supervisor, Galyn Susman - Special Effects Supervisor, Pete Docter - Screen Story, Ralph Eggleston - Screen Story, Jeff Pidgeon - Screen Story, Jill Culton - Screen Story, Andrew Stanton - Screenwriter, Daniel Gerson - Screenwriter, Glenn McQueen - Supervising Animator, Rich Quade - Supervising Animator

Similar Movies

Little Monsters; The Nightmare Before Christmas; Toy Story; Luxo Jr.; Antz; A Bug's Life; Toy Story 2; Chicken Run; Shrek; Robots; Muppets from Space; Monster House; Bee Movie
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Wikipedia: Monsters, Inc.
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Monsters, Inc.

Monsters, Inc. movie poster
Directed by Peter Docter
Co-Director:
Lee Unkrich
David Silverman
Produced by Darla K. Anderson
Executive Producer:
John Lasseter
Andrew Stanton
Associate Producer:
Kori Rae
Written by Story:
Jill Culton
Peter Docter
Ralph Eggleston
Jeff Pidgeon
Screenplay:
Andrew Stanton
Daniel Gerson
Additional Screenplay:
Robert L. Baird
Rhett Reese
Jonathan Roberts
Starring John Goodman
Billy Crystal
Steve Buscemi
James Coburn
Jennifer Tilly
Music by Randy Newman
Studio Pixar Animation Studios
Distributed by Buena Vista Pictures Distribution
Release date(s) November 2, 2001
Running time 94 min.
Language English
Budget $115 million
Gross revenue Domestic
$255,873,250
Worldwide
$525,366,597

Monsters, Inc. is a 2001 computer animated comedy film and the fourth feature-length film produced by Pixar Animation Studios. The film was released to theaters by Walt Disney Pictures in the United States on November 2, 2001, in Australia on December 26, 2001, and in the United Kingdom on February 8, 2002. Monsters, Inc. was written by Jack W. Bunting, Jill Culton, Peter Docter, Ralph Eggleston, Dan Gerson, Jeff Pidgeon, Rhett Reese, Jonathan Roberts and Andrew Stanton. It was directed by Pete Docter, Lee Unkrich, and David Silverman.[1]

Monsters, Inc. premiered in the United States on October 28, 2001, and went into general release on November 2, 2001 and was a commercial and critical success, grossing over $525,366,597 worldwide.[2] Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes also reported extremely positive reviews with a fresh 95% approval rating.[3]

Contents

Plot

Monsters, Inc. is the power company in the city of Monstropolis. Monsters, Inc. sends its many monster employees, skilled in scare techniques, to human children's bedrooms around the world at their local bedtime to scare them, through individually-loaded and activated teleportation doors set up on the “scare floor”, each of which precisely matches a closet door in the individual child’s bedroom. The screams of the suddenly-awakened tots, captured through the portals, generate electric power for the monster world. It is understood, however, that the children themselves are toxic, and the company goes to great lengths to prevent contact with them; should a monster be touched by a child, or simply their belongings, the Child Detection Agency (CDA) is immediately alerted to sanitize the affected being. With increasing numbers of children becoming desensitized by mass media, Monsters, Inc. CEO Henry J. Waternoose is finding it increasingly difficult to harvest enough scream to meet the power demands of Monstropolis, as their energy crisis looms.

One evening, James P. Sullivan ("Sulley"), Monsters, Inc.'s top scarer, finds a loaded door on the scare floor after hours - in violation of policy. Peering inside, the child's room appears empty, but Sulley finds to his horror that a human girl has followed him through the door, thinking him to be a giant kitty. Terrified of contamination, he tries to return her, but is forced to hide when Randall Boggs, a competitive co-scarer, emerges from the child's room and surreptitiously returns her door to an unseen door vault. Sulley quickly hides the child and gets hold of his work-partner and pal Mike Wazowski, to figure out the situation. Together at Sulley's home, they discover that being touched by the child is not harmful at all, and that when she laughs, surrounding electrical power surges to unusually high levels. Sulley nicknames the child "Boo" and becomes her caretaker until they can get her back home.

Sulley and Mike disguise Boo as a baby monster and return to Monsters, Inc. the next morning. Mike attempts to get the correct door to return Boo, but the doorkeeper, Roz, refuses his request: Mike has failed to properly return his paperwork. Boo wanders off into the plant, with Sulley giving chase. They accidentally stumble upon Randall and his "scream extractor", a device that extracts the screams directly from a physically restrained child, which requires Randall to actually kidnap one and bring them to the monster world. Sulley takes Boo and attempts to reveal Randall's actions to Waternoose, but is forced to demonstrate his scaring skills to new employees assembled at the plant’s scare simulator before he can do so. When he scares the robot subject, Boo becomes frightened of him, and is revealed as a human. Sulley tries to explain the situation to Waternoose, but comes to realize that Waternoose is actually in on the scream extractor plan, allowing Randall to develop it in order to keep Monsters, Inc. from going out of business. To keep them quiet, Waternoose orders Sulley and Mike exiled to the human world, and gives Boo to Randall to extract her screams to generate more power.

Sulley and Mike, now stranded in the snowy Himalayas in Nepal with its local monster inhabitant, an ever-gleeful Yeti, realize that Boo's life is in danger, and find a nearby Nepali village where they locate a door connected to Monsters, Inc. Scarefloor F (Mike and Sulley's work station). They are just in time to save Boo from the extractor, and attempt to catch Randall, eventually leading to a chase on, across, and through the myriad traveling portals within the cavernous automated door vault, all now activated by Boo's reverberating screams of delight. They eventually triumph once Boo overcomes her fear of Randall and starts beating him with a Wiffle bat. Sulley throws him through a door, and then they smash the door to pieces to prevent him returning. The door is revealed to reside in a trailer in a Southern swamp, and Randall's silhouette is shown passing by the trailer window. A boy and his mother then knock Randall senseless with a shovel, mistaking him for an alligator. Sulley, Mike, and Boo then lure Waternoose into an ingenious trap, forcing him to reveal his intentions on camera at the scare simulator. Waternoose furiously blames Sulley for destroying the entire company as he is arrested, but Roz (revealed to be Agent 001 of the CDA) insists that Boo must return to her world and that her door be destroyed so that she cannot return. Sulley and Mike return Boo to her room and say goodbye to her, and watch sadly as the CDA put her door through a door shredder, reducing it to splinters. Sulley holds onto one undisposed-of splinter as a keepsake.

Later, Sulley has become the CEO of Monsters, Inc., and has changed the company's approach - instead of scaring children, they make them laugh. This generates ten times more power, making both the monsters and children happy. Finally, Mike reveals his own special project to Sulley - he has managed to rebuild Boo's door save the one piece Sulley has kept, and invites him to finish it. Sulley places the last piece and enters the door, where an unseen Boo instantly recognizes him.

Voice cast

References to other Pixar films

There are numerous references to other Pixar films to be found in Monsters, Inc.; one example is that near the end of the film, Boo hands Sully a Jessie doll from Toy Story 2, the Luxo ball, and a plush of Nemo from Finding Nemo. Since Finding Nemo was the Pixar film that followed Monsters, Inc., it was presumably a sneak peek to the upcoming movie. Another is when Randall arrives in the trailer, it is the trailer from Bug's Life, and the pizza delivery car from Toy Story is seen sitting next to it.

Also, in the bloopers of the film, Rex from the Toy Story films makes a cameo appearance.

Other media

Manga

  • A manga version of Monsters, Inc. was made by Hiromi Yamafuji and distributed in Kodansha's Comic Bon Bon magazine in Japan; the manga was published in English by Tokyopop until it became out of print.

On ice

  • Feld Entertainment toured a Monsters, Inc. edition of their Disney on Ice skating tour from 2003 to 2007.

Video games

  • A series of video games, and a multi-platform video game were created, based on the movie, such as a movie adaptation, Monsters Inc., developed by A2M on PS2, Game Boy Color, and GBA consoles in 2001. The game received 5.1 from Gamespot and 2.0 from IGN for repetitive gameplay and poor graphics.

Monsters, Inc. Quiz Game

Cast

Playables

Math Game the playable is Sullivan. Quiz Game the playable is Mike and Boo.

Additional short film

  • A short was made by Pixar in 2002 named Mike's New Car, in which the two main characters have assorted misadventures with a car Mike has just bought. This film was not screened in theaters, but is included with the VHS and DVD release of Monsters, Inc.

Theme park attractions

Monsters, Inc. has inspired three attractions at Disney theme parks across the globe.

Music

For details, see Monsters, Inc. (soundtrack).

The score was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Score and the song "If I Didn't Have You" won the Academy Award for Best Original Song.

Awards

Trailers

One Pixar tradition is to create trailers for their films that do not contain footage from the released film[citation needed]. Trailers for this film include:

  • Sulley and Mike stumble into the wrong bedroom. Sulley blames Mike for the mistake, and the two have a fight, which is quickly resolved.
  • In a trailer shown before the first Harry Potter film, Sulley is shown playing charades with Mike, but Mike is unable to guess the phrase "Harry Potter". The clip never specifically mentions Harry Potter, but the end states that Monsters, Inc. is playing right next door. Afterwards, Mike attempts to charade by waving his arms in the air to make a star shape. A bored Sulley quickly and correctly guesses Star Wars. A bewildered Mike asks how he does it. A different version has Mike using a hula hoop, and Sulley correctly guesses Saturn.

Blu-ray Release

Monsters, Inc. will also become available on Blu-ray in September 2009.

See also

References

External links

Preceded by
K-PAX
Box office number-one films of 2001 (USA)
November 4 - November 11
Succeeded by
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
Preceded by
Vanilla Sky
Box office number-one films of 2002 (UK)
February 10 - February 24
Succeeded by
Ocean's Eleven

 
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Movies. Copyright © 2009 All Media Guide, LLC. Content provided by All Movie Guide ®, a trademark of All Media Guide, LLC. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Monsters, Inc." Read more

 

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