Welcome to Monstropolis and Monsters Inc.

Monsters Inc. welcomes you to the world of freaky creatures, specifically those who come out of a child's closet. They live in a place called Monstropolis, which is a regular city where monsters of all sorts live and work and do the same sorts of things we in the human world do. Monstropolis also needs electricity just like we do, too.

The power utility company that supplies Monstropolis with the power it needs to run has a very special power source: a child's screams.

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The star employee of Monsters Inc. is James P. Sullivan, aka "Sulley", who is a big blue furry guy with horns. For a long time, he's been on the top of the list for generating the most scream energy. Sulley's partner is Mike Wazowski, a round green monster with one huge eye and skinny arms and legs. What a character!

All of the monsters on Monster Inc.'s scare floor use millions of closet doors that belong to the children they scare every night. The door is set down in front of each docking station and the monster doing the scaring, like Sulley, is teleported into the child's closet while the partner, such as Mike, collects the scream energy into a canister.

Sulley and Mike are the best of friends and also roommates, but they are quite different in their personalities. Sulley has a main rivalry at Monsters Inc. for top scarer: Randall Boggs, who is a huge salamander-type monster who blends in with the background as a camouflage. Mike, on the other hand, seems only to think about his car and his girlfriend he would like to marry one day, the also-one-eyed Celia Mae, who has snakes for hair, like Medusa.

Even though monsters scare children, it's known in Monstropolis that children are very dangerous and toxic to them. This is why the scare monsters at Monsters Inc. are held in the same esteem as fire fighters and police officers: they are the heros for doing such a brave necessity to keep the city in energy. The monsters take their jobs very seriously and rigorous training is necessary for anybody working on the scare floor.

A Scary Child Invades Monstropolis!

We soon find out that children don't scare so easily anymore, due to their desensitization from movies and video games and other such media. This is of great concern to Monsters Inc. CEO, Henry J. Waternoose, a portly five-eyed monster with crab legs. When children don't scare as easily, there are less screams, and therefore, less energy to power Monstropolis.

One evening at quitting time, Mike asks Sulley to turn in the day's paperwork so that he can take Celia out. Sulley goes onto the scare floor after hours and sees an open door in violation of company policy.

Sulley explores further to see what this is all about by peeking into the doorway. He sees a little girl's room, but nobody is inside. So he goes back to the monster world. But when he turns around, he is shocked and horrified to see that the girl has followed him back, too!

The girl is completely unafraid and even calls Sulley "kitty", but Sulley is terrified at becoming contaminated by this toxic child. Despite his fear, he finds he must quickly hide from Randall Boggs, who just came through the door from the girl's room, and is seemingly up to no good.

Not knowing what to do with the girl, Sulley hides her and tries contacting Mike to figure out what to do with her. Sulley ends up taking her to Harryhausen's, a nice restaurant where Mike is having a romantic dinner with Celia. But the little girl escapes and is seen by the other monster diners and causes complete mayhem throughout.

The CDA is immediately called in, and all chaos breaks loose, but Mike and Sulley escape with the girl back to their home. Once safely inside their house, they learn that the child is not harmful or toxic and her laughs nearly blow the fuses in the entire building! Sulley begins calling the girl Boo, since she says that often, and the two plan to take her back the following day.

Forced Screams and Banishment

Sulley fixes Boo up in a monster costume as a disguise and they all return to Monsters Inc. the next morning. Mike, being a bit callous, suggests that they toss Boo into any old door, but Sulley, beginning to feel some affection for the child refuses to do so and puts in a retrieval request to the office manager, Roz.

Roz is a great looking slug-like character and she's abrupt, a bit rude and has a grating nasally-sounding voice. You get annoyed with Rozz quite easily but I couldn't help but like her because she was so well put together.

But Roz denies Sulley's request stating that the previous night's paperwork was not filed. Then Boo suddenly wanders off and Sulley has to go to find her. They both accidentally discover a secret room that Randall is using for a special machine called a scream extractor where a child is strapped into a chair and the device sucks the scream right out. This means that Randall must kidnap children and bring them to the monster world to do this evil.

Sulley finds Mike and together they go straight to Waternoose and tell him everything. However, they are shocked to learn that Waternoose is in on the plan with Randall. He is desperate for more power and more screams and will go to extreme lengths to get it so that Monsters Inc. will stay in business.

To prevent his evil secret from getting out, Waternoose banishes Mike and Sulley through a door leading them into the cold, stormy, snowy Himalayas. The two meet the Yeti, another banished monster who lives there and is a happy go lucky guy who keeps offering snow cones for them to eat. How hospitable!

But Sulley and Mike know that Boo is in terrible danger and they want desperately to get back to Monstropolis to save her from Randall's scream extractor.

They ask the Yeti if there is a nearby town and he says there is one down the mountain, so they take off sliding down the mountain through the wind and driving snow. This is another part of Monsters Inc. that has remarkably good effects - it looks so real - quite impressive, wouldn't you say?

The Power of Laughter

Luckily, they find a village that has a closet in a child's room and they're able to get back to Monsters Inc. in no time. Mike and Sulley confront Randall who then gives chase inside the gigantic door vault. It is a dizzying and exciting ride and all the doors are activated and on hyper-drive by Boo's delighted laughter during the whole thing.

Sulley catches up with Randall and throws him through a door where he ends up in an old motor home in a Louisana swamp. The boy and his mom beat Randall with a shovel thinking an alligator got inside. Immediately the door is destroyed, trapping Randall.

Sulley, Mike and Boo then set up Waternoose into a scenario where he confesses everything and it's captured on video for all to see. Roz then comes in, revealing herself as the lead agent in a CDA sting operation, finally able to confirm that Waternoose was criminal.

Roz also insists that Boo get home right away and her door is destroyed. Sulley is very sad, but is promoted to be the new CEO of Monsters Inc. and he overhauls the company to get its energy from the power of children's laughter.

The monsters change tactics. It's no longer the scare floor as monsters yuk it up, putting on their funniest show for the kids. Power is surging throughout Monstropolis again and all is well.

Mike, knowing how much Sulley misses Boo, later shows him his special project he's been working on. At the end of Monsters Inc., Mike put together Boo's shredded door again except for the one piece that Sulley kept as a memento.

The door won't work unless all the pieces are in place and Sulley puts his in. The red light switches on and Sulley pokes his head into Boo's room. While we don't get to see Boo, we do hear her say Kitty! and Sulley smiles warmly.