What produces more power? Screams or laughter? It's an odd question, but the answer is laughter, and it changes the way that the Monsters in this universe operate. No longer do they work to scare human children; rather, the less scary monsters work to entertain them and make them laugh.
At the beginning of the film, for example, we see monsters working in pairs. Sully (John Goodman) scares, and Mike (Billy Crystal) takes care of the canisters, orders the doors, and write up the reports. Once laughter replaces screams as the Monsters' renewable resource, one assumes that the jobs Mike and Sully perform are reversed. But is Sully very good at paperwork? (Not that Mike was the best, but...)
I like this film. It's funny that at the beginning the Monsters are just as scared of human children (and maybe more so) as the children are of them. Monsters have the belief that children are "toxic" and deadly. In fact, entire contamination crews exist just in the event that a child touches a Monster. Sully and Boo (Mary Gibbs) quickly form a bound, however, and Sully even seems to have an existential crisis about being a Monster. He sees Boo's reaction when he is doing his job, and he doesn't like the fact that he's scared her. Pretty funny, considering how many other children he must have scared over the years... but then, that was just his job. He was doing his duty for his country, and before Boo, he never gave the trauma he was causing a second thought.
The movie holds up really well. Very creatively developed universe. Good characters. Good lines. Good music. Just a wonderfully enjoyable movie to rewatch. Along with Toy Story, this has the rank near the top of all Pixar movies.
Rating: 5/5
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