Monsters University (2013)
Directed by Dan Scanlon
A look at the relationship between Mike and Sulley during their days at Monsters University — when they weren't necessarily the best of friends.
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5 films that influenced Monsters University
What critics say influenced Monsters University
This certainly wouldn’t be the first time Pixar has borrowed a well-worn template from an earlier movie: The wondrous A Bug’s Life is The Seven Samurai with insects, and Cars is Doc Hollywood with cars.
If the competition plot threatens to evoke the specter of Pixar’s one mediocre film, Cars 2 , Monsters University goes down easily, where Cars 2 stuck in the throat.
And this written was before the studio had reached true greatness with WALL-E (2008) and Up (2009), and also before they made their first stinker, Cars 2 (2011).
Nor is it a Cars 2 fiasco that makes you question if Pixar has lost its magic touch that made a classic out of everything boasting its name.
More offensive was 2011's appalling " Cars 2 ," a hatefully desperate money-grab that turned its back on every last message 2006's lovely " Cars " stood for.
“MU’’ is yet another play-it-safe cash grab that doesn’t aspire to come within light years of even the second tier of Pixar titles — including the three “Toy Story’’ films and the original “Cars’’ — all of which had genuine multigenerational appeal, if not quite the level of sophistication of the studio’s classics.
Like Toy Story 3 , which used the depressing theme of growing out of your toys (depressing, at least, for the toys) to illustrate a greater theme of mortality, Monsters University has grown up with the original film’s audience.
Monsters University is not going to have you silently blubbering away/wiping away manly tears like the brilliant Toy Story 3 , the Pixar Animation/Walt Disney Pictures film you’d have to be comatose not to love.
In the case of Monsters University that younger sibling is Dan Scanlon, a storyboard artist on Pixar films Cars and Toy Story 3 who stepped up to the plate to direct this prequel.
Remember how you felt watching “The Incredibles” or “Ratatouille” or, most recently in the Pixar canon, “Toy Story 3”?
If you were worried that animation giant Pixar was dipping into the same old wells too often (" Toy Story 3 ," " Cars 2 ," et al), the announcement of a prequel to their 2001 hit " Monsters, Inc. " might have given you pause.
So high the bar was raised by the likes of John Lasseter, Lee Unkrich, Andrew Stanton and Brad Bird (responsible for Toy Story , Finding Nemo and The Incredibles , respectively) that any movie released after that golden of golden periods will have a lot to live up to, like a younger sibling following the path of an older, trailblazing brother (such is the sausage factory that is Pixar).
Or as artful as its 2003 Oscar-winning " Finding Nemo ."
With even more sequels in Disney and Pixar's immediate future (including the upcoming spin-off "Planes" and " Finding Nemo " follow-up "Finding Dory"), we now arrive at "Monsters University," the prequel (how's that for sounding new and exciting?) to 2001's charming " Monsters, Inc. " The best way to approach any movie is with few expectations or pre-conceived notions, and that's because, as is the case with "Monsters University," sometimes said film can genuinely surprise.
Among that first generation of Pixar masterpieces, Monsters Inc. may not occupy as sacred a spot as the heartbreaking Toy Story films or the epic Finding Nemo.
And while it may not be as a standard-setting classic like Toy Story 2, WALL•E, or Finding Nemo , it’s satisfying, hilarious, unpredictable, and willing to take big storytelling risks.
Sure, there might have been the occasional hiccup (that being 2006's "Cars") after a stellar run that included the likes of the first two "Toy Story" films, "Finding Nemo" and "The Incredibles."
Note: for the morbidly curious, here's my ranking of the fourteen Pixar features to date: 1) Up, 2) Toy Story 2, 3) WALL-E, 4) Toy Story 3, 5) Toy Story, 6) The Incredibles, 7) Brave, 8) Finding Nemo, 9) Ratatouille, 10) Monsters University, 11) Monsters, Inc., 12) A Bug's Life, 13) Cars, 14) Cars 2. Help keep Combustible Celluloid going!
“Monsters University” is better than “Cars 2” but not by enough, and along with last year’s inspired but cluttered “Brave,” it offers unsettling evidence that Pixar’s Golden Age may be in the past.
Of course, enjoyable though it may be, there is something slightly disheartening about Monsters University, as it is the third sequel or prequel of the past four years to come from Pixar, which, since Toy Story (1995), has been one of the most reliable generators of entertaining and meaningful original storytelling (the only original story since 2009’s sublime Up was last year’s Brave).
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Meanwhile, the central Scare Games, which run the gamut from races in the dark as the contestants dodge poisonous, glowing urchins, to a "Don't Scare the Teenager" maze, are entertaining and varied, like a goofier TriWizard Tournament from 2005's " Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire ."As the Oozma Kappas begin to succeed, rising ever higher on the leaderboard, it may seem exceedingly predictable where things are headed.