SAY BOO! 'MONSTERS, INC.' NOW A CLASSIC DISNEY 'DARK RIDE'.

Byline: Alessandra Djurklou Staff Writer

DOORS, DOORS everywhere. Blue doors, yellow doors, white doors, pink doors with flowers painted on them. And crouching on the doors, peeping out of the doors, creatures that can only be described as monsters, though not scary ones - friendly, comical ones, with tentacles and multiple heads and eyes.

That is the sight that hits you when you veer left off the main road in the Hollywood Backlot section at Disney's California Adventure. It is the facade of the park's newest ride (or, in Disneyspeak, attraction), ``Monsters, Inc. Mike and Sulley to the Rescue!''

Based on Pixar's popular 2001 film ``Monsters, Inc.,'' this is not a roller coaster or a simulator, but a good old-fashioned dark ride.

You get in a cab, and it takes you through the basic gist of the film.

For those who aren't familiar with the film, it's set in Monstropolis, a universe very much like ours, except that it's populated by monsters. In a sly nod to California's own problems at the time, Monstropolis is having a power crisis. The inhabitants derive their main source of energy from the screams of little children, who are visited every night by a cadre of creatures who scare them and ``collect'' the noise.

But modern children are getting so jaded they are now too hard to scare.

The hero of the piece is the company's top scarer, Sulley (voiced by John Goodman), and he and his partner Mike (voiced by Billy Crystal) enjoy top status at their utility company, Monsters, Inc.

But they stand to lose everything when a little girl named Boo escapes from her world into theirs. The monsters are completely freaked out by human children, convinced they are toxic. So now Sulley and Mike have to get Boo back to her world safely.

The ride takes you through the rescue operation, and, as always, Disney shines when it comes to meticulous attention to detail.

It all starts in the waiting area, where, because Disney realizes you may have to stand in line for quite a while, there are plenty of things to read and look at.

The waiting area is a taxi depot for Monstropolis and, as such, has all the things you would find in such a place, except monstrified. A sign by the ticket booth informs you that if you have more than one head, you need only buy one ticket, but if you have one head and multiple bodies, you have to buy multiple tickets.

Liquid monsters are asked to ``contain'' themselves.

Then there are commercials from the Monstropolis Chamber of Commerce; menus for the hot sushi restaurant, Harry Hausen's (a tribute to Ray Harryhausen, special-effects master on such films as ``The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms''); and posters advertising the Child Detection Agency, or CDA.

Once you get on the cab, if you have seen the movie, the ride holds no real surprises. However, the creatures are wonderfully 3-D, the voice talents in evidence and, again, there are more details.

For example, going through the scene at Harry Hausen's sushi restaurant, you get a strong whiff of ginger. Randall, the chameleonic monster and main villain of the piece, is used to great advantage, whether as a hologram or a real color-changing set-piece.

And at the end of the ride, there's the fun payoff of getting to interact with Roz, the grumpy Monsters, Inc. bureaucrat who wears granny glasses and looks a lot like a large slug. Don't be surprised if Roz makes a comment to one of the riders.

``I like your glasses,'' she said raspily to the woman sitting in the back of the cab. ``Want to trade?''

The woman demurred.

``Selfish.''

This is the third attraction in the resort to be based on a Pixar movie. Disney's California Adventure has a 3-D feature based on ``A Bug's Life,'' and Disneyland last year opened a dark ride in Tomorrowland based on Buzz Lightyear from the ``Toy Story'' movies.

The old submarine ride at Disneyland is in the middle of being transformed into a water ride inspired by ``Finding Nemo.''

Considering how successful Pixar's movies have been, and the fact that Disney just bought the company, it can't be long before each film inspires a ride.

In the case of ``Monsters, Inc.,'' it's certainly an improvement over what was there before. Another dark ride, based on the Hollywood scene, took people through Tinseltown in a limo, meeting celebrities on the way, including Regis Philbin and Whoopi Goldberg.

The monsters feel far more real.

MONSTERS, INC. MIKE AND SULLEY TO THE RESCUE!

What: New dark ride based on the Pixar film.

Where: Disney's California Adventure, 1313 S. Harbor Blvd., Anaheim.

Tickets: $59 adults and children 10 and older, $49 children under 10, $57 for seniors 60 and older; to get into Disneyland as well (for the ``Toy Story'' ride), you'll need to purchase another ticket for about the same price, or a combination ticket; prices change so often that they are no longer published on the Disneyland Web site, so call [phone].

Information: http://disneyland.disney.go.com

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Photo:

(1 -- 2) Sulley the monster is on a mission to get a little girl named Boo back to her world on the ``Monsters, Inc. Mike and Sulley to the Rescue!'' ride at Disney's California Adventure. Below, the raspy-voiced and sluglike Roz interacts with the audience.