We all know about the masterpieces that Pixar has
made over the years, from the ‘Toy Story’ trilogy to ‘Finding Nemo’ to ‘The
Incredibles’. Their filmography is so prestigious that many hold the company to
rather high standards. But, not every company’s perfect, and Pixar has had a
rather rough going the last few years. 2011’s ‘Cars 2’, Pixar’s first non-Toy
Story sequel, was the company’s first major critical flop. Their next film,
2012’s ‘Brave’, did receive better reviews and it even won the Academy Award
for Best Animated Feature. However, the reviews were still not up to par with
the Pixar classics and as for that Oscar… well, let me just say that there were
much better films than ‘Brave’ that came out last year. For their next film,
Pixar returns to the universe of one of their many classics, 2001’s ‘Monsters
Inc.’, with ‘Monsters University’. This prequel (the first by Pixar) tells the
story of how Mike Wazowski and James P. Sullivan (AKA Sulley) met while at
college. Does this prequel help get Pixar back on track after back-to-back
misfires?
Eager to become a scarer ever since he was young,
Mike Wazowski (Billy Crystal) begins his first year at the prestigious Monsters
University, majoring in scaring. However, the hard-working Mike soon comes into
conflict with fellow scaring major student James P. Sullivan AKA Sulley (John
Goodman), a more arrogant and lazy monster whose father was a famous scarer. A
rivalry is started amongst the two as they try to one-up each other. However,
when it goes too far, the two of them end up getting kicked out of the program
by M.U. headmistress Dean Hardscrabble (Helen Mirren). In an attempt to get
back into the program, Mike and Sulley join the Oozma Kappa fraternity to
compete in the Scare Games, a competition that tests the scaring abilities of
monsters. Mike makes a deal with Dean Hardscrabble where if Oozma Kappa wins
the Scare Games, Mike, Sulley, and the other members of the fraternity will be
re-admitted into the Scare Program. If they lose, then Mike will leave Monsters
University for good.
From a prequel standpoint, ‘Monsters University’
does not suffer from the dreaded ‘prequelitis’ that has plagued multiple
prequels over the last few years. Any references made to ‘Monsters Inc.’ are
pretty subtle and not just thrown in for a cheap reference. As for the rest of
the writing, the film is a charming and creative look as to how Mike and Sulley
became friends after they were first rivals. You can see why it started like
this because the two are very different. Mike’s the bookworm who believes in
hard work while Sulley is more laid-back, mostly getting by on his family
legacy. The film also does a good job at distinguishing itself from the other ‘Monsters’
film, mainly by way of establishing who the main character is out of the two. ‘Monsters
Inc.’ was more focused around Sulley, as he befriended a human child despite
the fact that, in the eyes of monsters, humans are toxic. ‘Monsters University’
is Mike’s story and is told from his point of view.
As Mike and Sulley, Billy Crystal and John Goodman
both do excellent jobs once again. The two work off each other very well, which
was already proven 12 years ago in ‘Monsters Inc.’ and is now once again
present here. The way the character Randall (once again played by Steve
Buscemi) is incorporated (no pun intended) into the story is also pretty
well-done, although the character is not really in the film that much. He
actually starts off as Mike’s friend and roommate at M.U. before a series of
events ultimately lead to Randall’s rivalry with Mike and Sulley. As for the
rest of the voice cast, it’s a pretty stacked cast, including Helen Mirren as
Dean Hardscrabble, Alfred Molina as Mike and Sulley’s Scare Professor, Nathan
Fillion as the president of a rival fraternity, and Charlie Day, Dave Foley,
and Sean Hayes as a few of the members of Oozma Kappa.
In the end, ‘Monsters University’ probably isn’t as
great as ‘Monsters Inc.’, but then again, that can be said for pretty much any
prequel to a classic. But, ‘Monsters University’ is one of the better prequels
in recent years. Even with a story that is fairly formulaic at times (save for
the final half hour, which does pull some unexpected twists (in fact, dare I
say it’s the best part of the whole movie)), there’s still a lot of heart in
this film and with a good script and a great voice cast, it’s a rock-solid
prequel that admittedly may appeal more to kids, but I believe that adults
(including anyone who’s about to go into college, like me) will find it
entertaining as well. It’s also easily the best film that Pixar has done since
‘Toy Story 3’ back in 2010. It’s still not really up there with the Pixar
classics but still, I’d say Pixar is finally getting back on track with this
film.
Rating: 4/5
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