Boogeymen with a Conscience

Rating: 8/10 (29 November 2001)

In the workaday world of monsters, Monsters, Inc. is the prime power provider. The workers at the company get the energy by emerging from kids' closets and scaring the beejeezus out of them. The subsequent screams are then bottled and used to power Monstropolis.
The company's top scarer is James P. Sullivan, aka Sulley (voiced by John Goodman). His sidekick/best friend is Mike Wazowski (Billy Crystal). Here's how it works. Doors from kids' rooms appear from a giant warehouse in the company's behemoth building. The scarer opens the door and steps into the kid's bedroom and scares the heck out of the little tyke. As the screams come, they fill up empty canisters, the kind in which one might find helium for balloons, which the sidekick keeps at the ready. Then the monster steps out, the leaderboard reflects the changes (they're very competitive there, you know), and another door is procured. The sidekick takes care of all of the paperwork. But kids aren't getting scared the way they used to, and there's a power shortage afoot.
There's one huge rule, though. Never come in contact with one of the kids, or any of the stuff from their rooms. The kids are toxic and will kill you on contact. (At one point, a particularly gruesome monster comes out of the room with a tiny sock velcroed to his fur; an emergency is declared, and a crack Kid Detection team races in to decontaminate the scene - and the monster, who gets quite a nasty shave. It's all innocuous enough, but it's also reflective of current events, although the movie was certainly written a while ago.)
One evening, Sulley offers to do the paperwork so Mike can go on a date with his beloved Celia (Jennifer Tilly). There aren't supposed to be any doors left on the floor after hours, but there one is, and Sulley's just inquisitive enough to open it. Whoops! A kid comes out. Hilarity ensues. Sulley races to get Mike, and they both panic. I mean, think of it! A KID, there in Monstropolis! They fear for their lives! And of course all the while the kid, whom Sulley names Boo, is being a cute, adorable, curious little rugrat.
This film was done by the Pixar people, the same nice folks who brought Toy Story and A Bug's Life to you. The animation is wonderful, although I'm not sure it's quite on par with Toy Story as far as the monsters go. The animation of the little girl, however, is fabulous. The animators must have kids of their own, because every nuance I can think of that a little kid would have was captured beautifully in this movie.
The actors providing the voices are a lot of fun, too. Whoever cast John Goodman and Billy Crystal is probably suffering from a dislocated shoulder from patting themselves on the back so much. The two stars have great chemistry, bordering on Laurel and Hardy-ish.
This is a bellyacher of a film, although admittedly it's not one that the intellectual snob would particularly enjoy. While the audience is the teeter-totter set, there is no overabundance of flatulence jokes - in fact, there aren't any. This is good clean (literally) fun.