Monsters, Inc. is a 2001 computer-animated comedy film produced by Walt Disney Pictures and Pixar Animation Studios. It is Pixar's fourth feature film, and the first film in the Monsters, Inc. franchise. The film was released on in the United States on November 2, 2001.
The film is directed by Pete Docter and features the voices of John Goodman as James P. Sullivan, Billy Crystal as Mike Wazowski, Mary Gibbs as Boo, Steve Buscemi as Randall Boggs, Jennifer Tilly as Celia Mae, and James Coburn as Henry J. Waternoose.
A prequel to the film, Monsters University, was released on June 21, 2019, while a follow-up series, Monsters at Work, was released on Disney+ on July 7, 2021.
Plot[]
The movie opens with a young kid laying in bed, frightened while looking at his closet door. Next thing he knows, a monster is standing beside him. The boy sits up and the scared monster screams, trips, and falls. Suddenly, alarms go off, lights come on, and we discover that it is a scaring practice going on in the training room of Monsters, Inc, the power company of Monstropolis. The head of the power company is Mr. Waternoose (James Coburn), who is training new monsters to scare kids. It seems that Monstropolis gets all its power from screams, and he has a whole squad of monsters whose job it is to scare kids at night and collect their screams.
It is a very complicated system they have for collecting the screams. They have a warehouse full of closet doors, and they call up a particular door for whichever room they want. The door is sent by a hanging conveyor belt and placed in front of the monster on the "scare floor". When the door is opened, the monster is in another room in another part of the world. If for any reason there is a problem with that particular room, the door is shredded.
One other thing... Monsters are actually more scared of the human kids than the kids are of them. If any part of the human world enters the monster world, the CDA (Child Detection Agency) comes in and decontaminates the place and the monster bringing it in.
The top scarer is James P. "Sulley" Sullivan (John Goodman). He is the best in the business. With the help of his assistant Mike Wazowski (Billy Crystal), they are about to break the record for most screams collected. In 2nd place on the list is Randall Boggs (Steve Buscemi). He will stop at nothing to be in first place. One night, Mike is in a hurry to get out since he has a date with his girlfriend Celia Mae (Jennifer Tilly) to celebrate her birthday at a fancy restaurant that he just reserved. He forgets to finish his paperwork though, so Sulley says he will go back in to get it. Sulley goes back to the scare floor, now deserted, except for one door that's still on the floor. Sulley is curious, so he peeks inside the door into a child's room, where no one's inside. Suddenly, he hears a thumping sound caused by his tail, and as he turns around he notices a cute little human girl playing with it, not scared of Sulley at all and in fact, thinks he is cute. Sulley is terrified of her and tries to put her back into her room before anyone finds out. Quickly, he runs out the door, back to the scare floor, and into the bathroom to get as far away from the girl as he can. When he looks into the mirror, however, he discovers that the girl is on his back.
Sulley takes the girl back to her door again, but when he goes back to the scare floor, Randall and his assistant are looking in the door, upset that the girl isn't there. They send the door back to the door warehouse. Sulley places the girl in a suitcase and heads out to the restaurant to find Mike. He interrupts Mike and Celia's dinner and shows Mike what he has in the suitcase, but both realize that the girl inside got out, sending the whole restaurant in panic with the monsters being evacuated. The CDA arrive, and the patrons are panicking and running, terribly fearful of the girl.
Sulley scoops her up, and he, the girl (whom he names Boo) and Mike run to their apartment just before the restaurant in encased in a decontamination dome. They try to hide her as the helicopters are searching outside, but whenever she cries, the lights come on brighter. Though when she laughs, the lights come on super bright. In fact, she laughs so hard once that she blows the fuse to the building. The next day they put a monster costume on Boo and bring her to the factory. Their goal is to find her door and bring her back without anyone noticing. Unfortunately, Randall and Fungus are also there searching for Boo. It made the news about Boo and the restaurant, and they are sure it is their fault.
Eventually, Randall convinces Mike that the door will be there waiting for them if they bring the girl back to the scream floor. Mike tells Sulley this, and right before they enter, Sulley figures out that Randall would never want to help them, so it must be a trap of some kind. Mike thinks he is crazy and runs in and starts jumping on Boo's bed to prove nothing is wrong. Suddenly, a box comes down and traps Mike inside. Sulley hides as Randall, and his assistant take the box to another room in the warehouse.
In the basement, Randall reveals to Mike that he has built a machine called the "Scream Extractor" to extract children's screams from their lungs (which would make the company's current tactics redundant). Randall straps Mike to the chair for experimentation and starts it up to try not to let him talk, but Sulley unplugs the machine. He then takes Mike and, along with Boo, runs to find Mr. Waternoose. Waternoose is proud of the two of them for discovering Randall's evil plan. The most important thing is, however, getting the girl back home. They head to the scare floor, and Waternoose calls up Boo's closet door.
Sulley and Mike say that it is the wrong door. Mr. Waternoose says he knows... it is not the door for her, but for them, and with that, he pushes the two through a door that leads them to the snowy peaks of the Himalayas. Waternoose has actually been helping Randall in the plan this whole time. They have been banished from Monstropolis. Sulley and Mike meet the Abominable Snowman who tells them that there is a village at the bottom of the mountain, which gives Sulley the idea that if they go to the village, all they have to do is to find any kid's closet and return to Monstropolis.
Back to the scare floor and out of a door comes Sulley. In Randall's lair, he and Mr. Waternoose argue over Randall's negligence that forced Waternoose to banish Sulley, feeling regretful about it. Sulley rushes to the secret room, and there, trapped in a chair, is Boo, about to have her screams sucked out. Sulley arrives and destroys the machine, takes Boo, and they rush to the scream floor (along with Mike who also returned from the Himalayas) to get her door with Randall right on their heels. They race from door to door, trying to find a shortcut to Boo's door in the warehouse. Each door they go through takes them to different places throughout the Earth.
"I don't know about the rest of you guys. But I spotted several big mistakes."
They finally trap Randall in a door that leads to a trailer in the Bayou. The kid in the trailer calls out to his mother that another alligator has come inside, and the boy hands a shovel to his mother, who then clubs the "gator". Once they returned to the scare floor, the CDA chases Mike while Waternoose chases Sulley and Boo through a door that appears to be Boo's. Waternoose confronts Sulley and declares that he will do anything to save the company, even if it means kidnapping children. Suddenly, an alarm sounds, and all the lights come on. They are not in Boo's room after all. They are actually in the training room from the beginning of the film, and Waternoose has just confessed in front of everyone.
They are all shocked, and the CDA arrest Waternoose after hearing his confession. The actual head of the company was Monsters Inc's dispatcher Roz, who has been undercover for over two and a half years trying to expose Randall and Waternoose's plan. She congratulates Sulley and gets the key to bringing Boo's door down.
Sulley, who has grown quite fond of Boo, tucks her in her own bed, plays with a few of her toys with her, and then goes back to his own world, shutting the door behind him to never see Boo again and turning that door back into Boo's ordinary closet. The door is shredded. The next day, the workers are now leaving the factory for the last time. It is permanently closing because kids just cannot be scared anymore. As Mike comments on how the past few days went, Sulley hears him say the word "laughs" and suddenly has an idea of how to save the company.
A couple of days later, Mike entering a kid's closet door. He sits down in front of the kid and starts doing a stand-up routine as a comedian, but to no avail. Mike has had enough and quickly does his final act. He swallows his microphone, waits a few seconds, and then burps loudly, making the kid laugh. As Mike leaves, he checks the power generated, and it is an enormous amount. It turns out that a child's laugh has ten times the power of a child's scream. The factory is saved, and everyone got their jobs back. However, Sulley is still sad as he still misses Boo. As mementos, he kept one of Boo's drawings and a single piece of her door under some pages on his clipboard. Mike then tells him that he has a surprise.
In the testing room, it is revealed the Mike had re-pieced Boo's door successfully together. All it needs is one more piece. Sulley grabs the final piece from his clipboard, places it into the door, and the light above illuminates. He slowly opens the door and looks to see if Boo is around. Boo then says, "Kitty," and Sulley smiles in delight for seeing Boo once more.
Transcrpt[]
Transcript may be viewed here.
Cast[]
- John Goodman - Sullivan
- Billy Crystal - Mike
- Mary Gibbs - Boo
- Steve Buscemi - Randall
- James Coburn - Waternoose
- 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
- Wallace Shawn as Rex
Additional Voices[]
- Ashley Edner
- Bill Farmer
- Bob Bergen - Witness #2
- Bob Scott
- Bobby Edner
- Bret Parker
- Danny Mann - Professor
- David Silverman
- Gino Conforti
- Guido Quaroni - Tony
- Jack Angel
- Jan Rabson - Sushi Chef
- Jennifer Darling
- Jim Thornton
- Joe Lala
- Joe Ranft - Pete "Claws" Ward, additional voices
- Josh Qualtierl
- Katherine Ringgold
- Katie Evans
- Kay Panabaker
- Keegan Farrell
- Laraine Newman - Mother, School Teacher
- Lee Unkrich
- Lisa Raggio
- Marc John Jefferies
- Mickie McGowan
- Mona Marshall
- Noah Luke
- Pat Fraley
- Patti Deutsch
- Paul Eiding
- Pete Docter
- Phil Proctor - Charlie
- Rodger Bumpass
- Sherry Lynn
- Sophia Ranft - Baby Smitty
- Taylor Gifaldi
- Terese Ganzel
Cameos[]
- Rex from Toy Story