We hold Pixar to an unfairly high standard. It’s a blessing and a curse, but it comes with the territory when you deliver such greats as WALL-E, the Toy Story franchise, Finding Nemo, Up and Ratatouille (a film that has grown on me more and more since first seeing it). It’s a sign of the greatness they achieved with their first ten films, but it’s an impossible trend to maintain.
With Cars 2 and Brave the animation studio that Toy Story built has never seen such a lull in quality. Unfortunately, Monsters University doesn’t return them to their exalted stature. This is a film that would be even more disappointing had it not been for the memories of the much admired original. As is, it plays like a passable diversion, continuing to hammer home those core Pixar values — friendship and teamwork — but just assumes our connection with the characters carries over from Monsters, Inc..
Monsters University serves as a prequel to 2001’s Monsters, Inc. in which monsters Mike Wazowski (voiced by Billy Crystal) and James P. Sullivan (John Goodman) worked for the titular company, harvesting children’s screams to power Monstropolis only to learn in the end children’s laughter is even more powerful. However, we now learn Mike and Sully weren’t always the best of friends.
Years earlier, Mike and Sully meet at Monsters University where the two have enrolled in the school’s illustrious Scaring School in hopes of one day working for Monsters, Inc. Sully is the son of one of the best scarers Monstropolis has ever seen and walks campus as already anointed royalty while Mike is the eager (and annoying) go-getter. Their personalities clash in the most obvious of ways, but they are ultimately forced to work together if their dream of being professional scarers is to ever come true.
This is standard stuff, which is why in a Pixar film it is so disappointing. We’ve reserved obvious plotting for the other animation houses. Pixar is supposed to appeal to our adult sensibilities while at the same time offering up high quality entertainment for the kiddies. It’s unfair, but it’s true. What’s tough to figure out is whether or not the fact Pixar has made such a pedestrian animated movie is more of a disappointment than if it was made by another studio, but I think after the disappointment of Brave my expectations have been tempered forever.
As Pixar has turned to making sequels and now prequels to their classic films they’ve also turned to different talent for their stories. Monsters, Inc. was co-directed by Lee Unkrich, Pete Docter and David Silverman, three filmmakers that would go on to bring us films such as Up, Finding Nemo, Toy Story 3 and The Simpsons Movie. University was directed and co-written by Dan Scanlon who previously co-wrote Cars. The talent and knack for story just isn’t the same and it shows.
In the end you recognize the characters, but Monsters University plays like something that’s more of a short film on par with another project Scanlon was involved in, the Mater and the Ghostlight short film that was released shortly after Cars. This serves as an accompanying piece to the Monsters franchise, but not as something worthy of a feature effort.
As much as it isn’t fair to judge Pixar for their past successes, Monsters University demands you compare it to the 2001 original, otherwise it would feel entirely out of place. As a result, I actually enjoyed my time with the movie enough to believe people will have a fun time with it, but don’t expect to be wowed as you’ve been in the past.
I can’t seem to recall any particular moment that stood out more than the rest. I remember laughing at a couple scenes and characters such as the guy with all the eyes and the “U”-shaped purple monster, but I can’t even remember their names. However, I can still remember little Boo in Monsters, Inc. referring to Sully as “kitty” and smiling every time.
Hopefully Pixar will be able to right the ship as the films they have coming up, outside of Finding Dory, are all original projects from the talent that made Pixar the studio we’ve placed up on high, because these last few years have been a little rough.
