3 ½ stars (out of four)
There are movies that are good kids’ entertainment and there
are movies that are simply good entertainment. Monsters University is good entertainment. I laughed out loud more
during it than any animated film in recent memory and, as a relatively recent
college graduate, even felt a nostalgic pang or two for my campus days.
A prequel to Disney/Pixar’s 2001 film Monsters Inc., it tells the story of how Mike and Sully, our
monster heroes from that movie, met in college and further explores the monster
world. A bit of backstory is necessary to understand that world but Monsters
University does a nice job filling you in
if it’s been a while since you saw the first one.
In Monsters Inc. we
learned that the monsters that hide under children’s beds and in their closets
are not the result of overactive imaginations or side effects of an undigested
late night snack. They are very real and exist in their own world, using the
energy from children’s screams to power their society. The geographic and
metaphysical relation between this world and the human world remains a mystery
but monsters are able to freely travel from the Monsters Inc. headquarters to a
given child’s bedroom through a specially designed door that acts as a portal.
The monsters themselves vary in shape, color and size. Some
have wings and claws, others have tentacles and multiple heads. Mike Wazowski
(voiced by Billy Crystal) is round and green, and his single eyeball takes up
nearly his whole body. When we first see him in childhood flashback, he is no
bigger than a volleyball. A puny runt by any monster’s standards, Mike is in
awe of the Scarers, the professional scream team at Monsters Inc., who he
catches a glimpse of on a school field trip to the facility.
You’re too small, you’re not scary enough, you’ll never be a
Scarer, Mike’s classmates tell him. He sets out to prove them wrong by studying
relentlessly and working hard to get into Monsters University. A student can
study all sorts of subjects at MU but anyone who’s anyone is in the Scare
Program. The terrifying, dragon-like Dean Hardscrabble (Helen Mirren)
personally oversees the program. She interrupts Professor Knight’s (the always
professorial Alfred Molina) Scaring 101 class to lecture the incoming freshmen
on a strict, new exam at the end of their first semester. Fail it and you’re
out of the program.
That’s no sweat for James Sullivan (John Goodman), a shaggy,
blue-haired beast with a ferocious roar. Looking leaner than his older self in Monsters
Inc. (and in an inspired touch, styling the
fur on his head in a faux-hawk), Sully comes from a family of Scarers. He
assumes he’ll be able to coast through college on the legacy of his family
name.
A fierce rivalry forms between Mike and Sully, which ultimately
lands them in hot water with Hardscrabble. In order to redeem themselves, they
must team up and win the Scare Games, an annual tournament held by MU’s greek
life. Helping them is Oozma Kappa, the lamest monster frat on campus. These new
characters include the two-headed Terri and Terry (Sean Hayes and Dave Foley),
a many-eyed blob named Squishy (Peter Sohn), the oblong furry freak Art
(Charlie Day) and Don Carlton (Joel Murray), a former salesman with a moustache
shaped like bat wings who is going back to school to learn “the computers.”
The rivals-the-pals story is a bit familiar but it’s
executed well here and the pleasures of Monsters University are in the embellishments. There are endless sight
gags in this exquisitely animated film and the script is genuinely hilarious at
times. I continue to be impressed too with Pixar animators’ abilities to create
complex emotions on their characters’ faces. There are several key turning
points in the plot conveyed by a subtle glance or facial expression.
And it is this emotional sensitivity, a Pixar trademark for
nearly two decades now, that makes Monsters University such a satisfying experience. The script, written by
Daniel Gerson, Robert L. Baird and Dan Scanlon (who also directed the movie),
has no shortage of wit and humor but it also has heart. This is a compassionate
story about the importance of hard work and of realizing that your shortcomings
may actually be strengths if viewed from a different angle.
These are excellent, positive messages for a kid in the
audience and when these themes are expressed as gracefully as they are here,
they ring true no matter how old you are.
- Steve Avigliano, 6/28/13
No comments:
Post a Comment