Monsters, Inc. (2001)

Monsters generate their city's power by scaring children, but they are terribly afraid themselves of being contaminated by children, so when one enters Monstropolis, top scarer Sulley finds his world disrupted.

Directors:

Pete Docter, David Silverman,

Writers:

Pete Docter (original story), Jill Culton (original story),

Stars:

John Goodman, Billy Crystal, Mary Gibbs

Top 250 #213 | Won 1 Oscar. Another 14 wins & 31 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
John Goodman	...	James P. "Sulley" Sullivan (voice)
Billy Crystal	...	Mike Wazowski (voice)
Mary Gibbs	...	Boo (voice)
Steve Buscemi	...	Randall Boggs (voice)
James Coburn	...	Henry J. Waternoose (voice)
Jennifer Tilly	...	Celia (voice)
Bob Peterson	...	Roz (voice)
John Ratzenberger	...	The Abominable Snowman (voice)
Frank Oz	...	Fungus (voice)
Daniel Gerson	...	Needleman / Smitty (voice)
Steve Susskind	...	Floor Manager (voice)
Bonnie Hunt	...	Flint (voice)
Jeff Pidgeon	...	Bile (voice)
Samuel Lord Black	...	George Sanderson (voice) (as Sam Black)
Jack Angel	...	(voice)

Storyline

A city of monsters with no humans called Monstropolis centers around the city's power company, Monsters, Inc. The lovable, confident, tough, furry blue behemoth-like giant monster named James P. Sullivan (better known as Sulley) and his wisecracking best friend, short, green cyclops monster Mike Wazowski, discover what happens when the real world interacts with theirs in the form of a 2-year-old baby girl dubbed "Boo," who accidentally sneaks into the monster world with Sulley one night. And now it's up to Sulley and Mike to send Boo back in her door before anybody finds out, especially two evil villains such as Sulley's main rival as a scarer, chameleon-like Randall (a monster that Boo is very afraid of), who possesses the ability to change the color of his skin, and Mike and Sulley's boss Mr. Waternoose, the chairman and chief executive officer of Monsters, Inc.

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Plot Keywords:

monster | scream | friend | girl | best friend | 

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Taglines:

Monsters, Inc. : We Scare Because We Care

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Genres:

Animation | Adventure | Comedy | Family | Fantasy

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Certificate:

G

Details

Official Sites:

Official Facebook Official site

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

2 November 2001 (USA)

Also Known As:

Hidden City

Box Office

Budget:

$115,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

$4,090,134 (France) (22 March 2002)

Gross:

$289,907,418 (USA) (26 April 2013)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Walt Disney Pictures, Pixar Animation Studios

Technical Specs

Runtime:

92 min

Sound Mix:

SDDS Dolby Digital DTS

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

John Goodman and Billy Crystal sometimes recorded their lines in the same room together, an unusual move for animated films, where actors more often work alone. Steve Buscemi and Frank Oz (Randall and his assistant Fungus) also recorded their lines together for the bathroom scene.

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Goofs

When Mike is talking to Roz about his paper work, Mike's lip crosses through the counter at one point.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Flint: All right, Mr. Bile, is it?
Bile: Uh, my friends call me Phlem.
Flint: Uh-huh, Mr. Bile, can you tell me what you did wrong?
Bile: I fell down?

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Crazy Credits

The closing credits features the disclaimer "No monsters were harmed during the making of this film".

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Connections

Referenced in Phelous & the Movies: Boogeyman (2011)

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Soundtracks

"If I Didn't Have You"
Music and Lyrics by Randy Newman
Performed by Billy Crystal and John Goodman
Produced by Randy Newman, Chris Montan, and Frank Wolf

User Reviews

The best computer animated film of them all, and the most adult

Until now I couldn't bring myself to believe that computer animation was the equal of either stop motion animation or hand-drawn animation. All computer animated films looked a little (usually more than a little) too sterile, many were animated poorly ("Antz", "Shrek", "Final Fantasy"), and even the single unqualified success ("Toy Story 2") provided little evidence that a computer animated film COULD reach the heights other kinds of animation could. "Toy Story 2" had flawless character animation, but nothing as inspired as the best in "Tarzan" (released the same year, although I could have chosen almost any other Disney cartoon to make my point); effective art direction, but nothing to match "Fantasia" or "The Nightmare Before Christmas". And I thought that "Toy Story 2" was as good as the art was ever going to get.

I was wrong. This is far better. And what's more, there's no sense whatever that the script (an unusually rich and uninhibited script) is bumping up against the limits of what the medium will allow. It's now been proven that computer animation CAN be just as good as any other kind. Whether it will be allowed to be in future is another question, but for now, I'm hopeful. What we have here is computer animation's first ENTIRELY unalloyed artistic delight, with every character gracefully and characteristically animated, every virtual set just right and pleasing to look at, and an eye-tickling mastery of colour, light and shade that I thought would forever elude CGI artists.

It's not fair to judge anything good as "Monsters, Inc." as though it were a children's movie, but I can't resist comparing it with "Shrek" - which emphatically IS a children's movie. "Monsters, inc." is admittedly ABOUT children, in a sort of a way. The inhabitants of Monstropolis rely on children's screams for their energy, and the central story is kicked off when one of the monsters accidentally brings a small child (which he calls "Boo") into the city. But we never see things from her point of view. We see things from the point of view of the monsters, who are all adults - and who, like most adults, see children as frightening, almost incomprehensible members of another species. And they ARE. To be sure, Wazowski comes to feel strong affection for Boo, but she never becomes more than a humanoid pet (which is not to demean the relationship). This is a story about adults looking at childhood from the outside.

"Shrek", of course, is a children's movie through and through. Its attention span is short, it has an unthinking mean streak, and children will have a whale of a time watching the central characters (the bigger they are, the more fun it is) act childishly and make poo-poo jokes. "Monsters, Inc." has too much genuine wit, characters too rich, a world with too much depth, and a story at once too coherent and too complicated, to be PRIMARILY a film for children. This is not to say children won't like it. Maybe they will. (Who can say?) Here's the bonus: if they DO like it, it will (unlike "Shrek") actually have a beneficial effect. It will make them less frightened of the dark.