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Monsters can be just about anything.
They've been portrayed as furry, fuzzy and sometimes even frightening. But leave it up to the corporate American movie industry to show the business of monsters as exactly that: a business. A multimillion dollar company that serves as both a full-time job for the monster employees, and in turn supports an entire monster city and its inhabitants. Blend this ingenious plot with state of the art Disney/Pixar Animation, and voila: the newest animated box-office smash, "Monsters, Inc."
Pixar Animation Studios and Walt Disney Pictures presented their latest piece of computer-animated entertainment as "Monsters, Inc.," premiered in theaters Nov. 2. From the creators of "Toy Story," "A Bug's Life" and "Toy Story 2," comes a whole new look at those things we all once believed lived under our beds. Showcasing the voices and talents of Billy Crystal, John Goodman, Jennifer Tilly and Steve Buscemi, this hilarious look at monsters gives both youngsters and adults a peek into the world from a monster's point of view.
The actual business of the Monsters, Inc. employees is, what else but scaring human children. Sneaking into children's bedrooms through their closet doors not only gives these monsters a paycheck, but also supplies the city of "Monstropolis" with its greatest energy source: a child's scream. James P. Sullivan (known as Sulley to his friends) and Mike Wazowski are the factory's top employees and have bottled enough screams to almost help the city out of its "scream drought." However, life for this pair of monsters literally changes overnight.
One night, as Sulley (Goodman) wraps up a late work shift, an unexpected surprise occurs. A human child breaks the barrier between the monster and human worlds by following Sulley back into the factory after a routine scaring. This wouldn't necessarily be such a big deal if monsters didn't all believe that human children are highly toxic, and any contact with them or their belongings would mean certain disaster for the entire city.
Sulley, with the help of his best friend, Mike (Crystal), must now find a way to get the little girl, affectionately named "Boo," back to her world without disrupting their very existence. The comedic adventures that follow create a frenzy that affects every monster in town, and displays some of the funniest effects that a little girl in a nightgown and pigtails can have on the scariest eight-foot tall monsters.
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Adding to the amusing plot and voice talents of "Monsters, Inc." is the astonishing computer animation presented by the Academy Award-winning crew of Pixar Animation Studios. Presenting some of the most advanced computer animation technology to date, the designers of the film used several innovative graphics programs during its production to make a world intensely believable and realistic. One program called "Deep Shadowing" allowed as many as 3 million individual hairs on Sulley's fur coat to each have its own shadow, depth, and movement.
So, for an amazing experience of technological creativity, or just for an amusing time, leave all your doubts and fears behind, and go to see "Monsters, Inc." Forget all those childhood nightmares about ugly, creepy things in the closet or under the bed. It turns out that all in all, monsters are just average working Joes, like all the rest of us.