May 18th, 2016 Movie – Monsters, Inc.

Yup, there are times that I am nothing more than a big kid. Now I didn’t see this when it came out in theaters, though I honestly don’t know why. Anyways, when it came out on DVD, I wound up buying it and it quickly became one of my favorite original animated movies. After all, I liked all of the other Pixar movies that had come out at the time so why would this one be any different. So let’s have some fun with today’s movie, Monsters, Inc.

The plot: A little kid is lying in bed when he is woken by the sound of his closet door opening but when he doesn’t see anything, the kid goes back to sleep, unaware that a monster is hiding next to his bed. When the monster stands up, the kid sees it and screams, causing the monster to scream and trip over some of the toys in the room. Suddenly, the lights come on and the kid, who is just a training dummy for Monsters Inc., goes back to the sleeping position while the monster is chastised for leaving the door open, with the chairman of the company, Henry J. Waternoose, saying that a child could use the door to enter Monsterworld and that their touch is deadly to monsters. When one of the trainees says he won’t go into a child’s room, Waternoose says they will because the city runs on children’s screams and they need all the screams they can get due to a scream shortage. The next day, Monster, Inc.’s top scarer, James P. “Sully” Sullivan is woken up by his roommate and partner Mike Wazowski for his morning exercises. Walking to work due to the scare shortage, they are greeted by several monsters that comment about Sully being close to breaking the all-time scare record. Reaching Monsters, Inc. Mike goes to see his girlfriend Celia Mae, who works as a receptionist there, and tells her that he got reservations to a high end restaurant for her birthday. In the locker room, Mike thanks Sully for the tickets but then is scared by Randall, another scare floor monster and Sully’s chief rival for breaking the all-time scare record. After collecting his paperwork from Roz, the scare floor’s administrator, Mike gets set up for their shift, bringing a door that will open into a kids room. Throughout the day, Sully and Randall go back and forth for the top position on the leaderboard when an incident with a sock stuck on a monsters back causes the CDA (Child Detection Agency) to be called in and the floor is temporarily shut down. Waternoose complains about the shutdown and asks Sully to help teach new scarers to frighten kids. When their shift is over, Mike is preparing to head out for his date but when Roz asks if he filed his paperwork, Sully volunteers to get it for him. Heading back to the scare floor, Sully spots an active door on the floor and he checks to see if someone is inside. Not finding anyone, he goes back through the door and finds a three year old girl on the scare floor. Sully freaks and places the girl back in her bed but as he leaves, he trips over some of her toys. Seeing someone coming, Sully runs back into the locker room and hides the stuff from the kid’s room but finds that the kid had climbed on his back. Sully hides the kid in a bag and heads back to the scare floor but sees Randall coming out of the door and sends the kids door back to the holding area. Not knowing what to do, Sully heads to the restaurant to tell Mike but the kid gets out of the bag, causing the patrons to panic. Sully and Mike manage to grab the kid and get out of there before the CDA arrives and decontaminates the area and all the patrons. Back at Sully and Mike’s apartment, they try to keep the kid, who calls Sully “Kitty”, hidden but when she starts crying after Mike takes a stuffed animal away from her, they try to give it back before the power surge from her crying attracts the CDA’s attention. Mike trips and causes some stuff to fall on his head, causing the kid to laugh, which causes a massive power surge that blows out the lights and Sully wonders what it was. When the kid gets sleepy, she ends up crawling into Sully’s bed but is scared of the closet, showing a drawing she made of Randall. Sully sits in front of the closet until she goes to sleep and tells Mike that he doesn’t think she is dangerous. The next day, Sully and Mike makes a costume to disguise the the kid and head to Monsters, Inc. but find the CDA searching the place. Mike leaves Sully and the kid in the locker room while he goes to try and get the key to her door from Roz but Roz refuses since Mike’s paperwork wasn’t turned in. Mike returns to the locker room to find Sully playing hide and seek with the kid when they all hide as Randall enters the locker room and they over hear him talking with his partner, Jeff Fungus. After they leave, they head back to the floor and Mike grabs a card from a coworker and brings it’s door down but Sully says it is not Boo’s (what he decided to call the kid) door. When Boo runs off while they are arguing, Sully and Mike go looking for her and run into Randall. Mike tries to misdirect Randall but when Celia starts yelling at Mike, Randall realizes Mike was at the restaurant. Randall confronts Mike and tells him that when the scare floor empties during lunch, he will have Boo’s door at his work station. Meanwhile, Sully sees Boo fall into a garbage can but when he is distracted by some CDA officials, he doesn’t see her climb out, leaving one of the eyes from her costume in the can. Sully sees the trash sent down the garbage suit and watches as it goes through the compactor, resulting in a cube of garbage coming out. Mike sees Sully carrying the cube of garbage but when they hear Boo’s voice, they see her playing with a group of monster kids. Heading to the scare floor, they see Boo’s door but Sully gets suspicious when Mike says Randall is involved. When Mike tries to show that everything is ok, he is grabbed by Randall and hidden inside some scare cans and Sully and Boo follow him. Losing sight of Randall at a dead end, Boo finds the secret entrance and they head down a tunnel, where they watch Randall and Jeff strap Mike into a chair and turn on a machine Randall calls the Scream Extractor. Sully unplugs the machine and while Randall goes to plug it back in, Sully frees Mike and Randall returns to find Jeff attached to the machine. Sully and Mike start to leave the building but Sully decides to tell Waternoose what is going on. Heading towards the training room, they try talking to Waternoose but Waternoose insists on Sully giving a scare demonstration, which he reluctantly does, scaring Boo in the process. After the trainees leave, Sully tries to comfort Boo but she runs from him, exposing herself as kid in the process. When Waternoose sees her, Mike explains what happened and Waternoose picks up Boo and says he will take care of things. Summoning a door, Waternoose apologizes for their getting involved but when the door arrives, Sully and Mike notice it is not Boo’s door and Waternoose says it’s theirs, as Randall opens it and Waternoose shoves them through. Sully tries going back but the door is deactivated, leaving them stranded in the human world. Mike is angry about the situation and when he sees Sully isn’t listening to him, Mike attacks him and the tumble down the hill, where they run into the Abominable Snowman. Abominable takes them to his cave, where he talks about all the place has to offer and when Sully learns that there is a village nearby, he looks through all of the stuff Abominable has in the cave and fashions a sled to go to the village. Mike argues with Sully about everything but refuses to head off with Sully. Sully sleds down the mountain and manages to make it to the village and uses a kids closet to go back to Monsteropolis. Racing back to the secret chamber, Sully breaks the Scream Extractor loose and tosses it towards Randall and Waternoose, pinning Waternoose to the wall. Sully frees Boo and grabs the card for her door but before they can leave, he is attacked by Randall, who uses his chameleon abilities to turn invisible so Sully can’t fight back. Mike shows up while Sully is fighting Randall but thinking Sully is ignoring him, throws a snowball at him but hits Randall, allowing Sully to hit Randall. Sully grabs Mike and Boo and they head for the scare floor when Celia grabs Mike and demands an explanation. Mike tells her what is going on but she doesn’t believe him until she sees Boo with them and Randall chasing them. Reaching the scare floor, the summon Boo’s door but Randall is almost on them until Celia gets on the intercom and announces that Randall broke the all-time scare record, causing Randall to be mobbed by coworkers. Realizing that they won’t have time to get Boo home, Sully sends the back, then he and Mike grabs onto another door and follow it to the storage department, with Randall chasing after it. When the door they are riding reaches a dead end, Sully has Mike make Boo laugh, causing a power surge that activate all of the doors. Making their way through the various doors to escape from Randall, but Randall manages to grab Boo and send the door they are riding on falling to the ground. Sully and Mike manage to get through the door and back to Monsteropolis, where they chase after Randall. Randall goes through a door and Sully follows him but Randall attacks him, knocking him back through the door but Sully manages to hold on to the door frame so he doesn’t fall. As Randall steps on Sully’s feet, Boo attacks Randall, allowing Sully to climb back in and grab Randall. Sully and Mike send Randall through a door, where the humans think he is an alligator and begin attacking him with a shovel, then destroy the door so Randall can’t come back. Finding Boo’s door, the try to send Boo back through but realize the power is off. Before they can make her laugh again, the door starts moving, having been summoned by Waternoose, who is waiting with the CDA to arrest Sully and Mike. Reaching the scare floor, Mike distracts the CDA and runs off with Boo’s costume and while they chase after him, Sully grabs Boo’s door and heads out, but Waternoose sees them and chases after them. Sully places the door in a station and goes through but Waternoose follows after and tells Sully that he will do what ever it takes to keep the company going, even if he has to kidnap 1000 kids. Waternoose strikes Sully and goes to grab Boo but grabs the training dummy instead. Suddenly, the lights come on and the wall lifts up to show Mike there with the CDA, having heard Waternoose’s confession. Waternoose is arrested and Sully and Mike are approached by the CDA’s #1 agent, which turns out to be Roz. Roz said that she had been undercover for 2 1/2 years but didn’t know Waternoose was involved until the grabbed Boo. Sully says he wants to send Boo home and Roz agrees, but summons a shredder for the door, saying that it is the rules. Mike says goodbye to Boo and Sully takes her back to her room and places her in bed hugging her goodbye. After Sully leaves, Boo tries opening the closet to see him again but only sees her closet as the door has been shredded. Leaving the company, Mike comments about how they effectively shut down the company but Sully realizes that there is a way to save it. Some time later, Mike enters a kids room and tries telling jokes but when he gets no response, lets out a loud belch which causes the kid to laugh. Returning to Monsteropolis, Sully congratulates Mike on reaching his quota as it is shown that Monsters, Inc. now focuses on making kids laugh, since it is 10 times more powerful than screams. As Sully is looking out over the floor, Mike takes him to a hidden room, where he shows Sully Boo’s door, which he had been rebuilding. Sully places the piece of the door he had kept as a memento into the door and the door becomes active. Stepping inside, Sully calls out to Boo and starts to smile when he hears someone calling him Kitty.

Monsters, Inc. was highly praised by the critics, earning a certified fresh rating of 96% on Rotten Tomatoes. The critical consensus on the site is that it is, “Clever, funny, and delightful to look at, Monsters, Inc. delivers another resounding example of how Pixar elevated the bar for modern all-ages animation.” The movie would win an Academy Award for Best Original Song, Randy Newman’s first after 15 previous nominations. The movie was a box office hit, earning over $562 million off a $115 million budget.

Simply put, I love this movie. John Goodman (Sully) and Billy Crystal (Mike) did a great job with their voice overs and had some great comedic timing between the two. Steve Buscemi (Randall), James Coburn (Waternoose) and Bob Peterson (Roz) were also good with their voice work. The story was well written and had a lot of laughs as well as drama mixed in, making it impossible not to keep watching or be entertained. I will admit that I did tear up some at the end when Sully opens the door and hears Boo call him Kitty. It’s hard not too. The animation was incredible and definitely showed how Pixar has steadily improved over the years. A great movie to watch, even if you don’t have any kids to watch it with.

Rating: 5 out of 5