Film review - Monsters University

Twelve years ago the wonderful Monsters Inc. introduced us to Mike and Sully.  When we met the motor mouthed, one-eyed cue ball Mike and the gentle-giant furball Sully, they were just a pair of wisecracking beastly ‘scarers’ who frightened the life out of human kids, turning their screams into energy to generate power for their secret monster world.

Now, in the long awaited follow up Monsters University, we see how Mike and Sully first crossed paths at college and how they came to be scarers.

In a sweet prologue, we join young Mike on a school trip to the Monsters, Inc. factory floor. On the spot, he decides his ambition is to become a scarer: the creatures who creep into children’s bedrooms around the world and extract the precious ‘scream power’.

To get there, Mike needs a degree from Monsters University, a prestigious scare school presided over by imperious half-bat, half-centipede, Dean Hardscrabble (a deliciously sinister Helen Mirren.)  And it is here that we join Mike some years later, hauling a suitcase full of textbooks through its sunlit quadrangles, and towards a brighter future … or so he thinks.

It’s clear that the partners-in-fright camaraderie of the first film is not there: when they meet in college, Mike and Sully soon become sworn rivals. Swotty Mike (a perky Billy Crystal) knows the college reading list backwards, but we suspect that real scariness needs to be earned, not learnt from books. Meanwhile, Sully (a hang-loose John Goodman) hails from an esteemed dynasty of scarers, making him a combination of laziness and arrogance.

When Mike and Sully enter the school's ‘Scare Programme’ by winning the annual campus scaring competition (to avoid getting roped into a boring career of making scream canisters), their strengths and weaknesses become very apparent. After Hardscrabble boots them out of the elite scarer course, they are taken on by the very uncool fraternity group Oozma Kappa (the only ones who will take them) to compete in the Greek Scare Games tournament for a second chance at achieving their dreams. Cue hilarity, slapstick and some valuable lessons learnt along the way.

Mike and Sully have some bonding to do, which unfolds via the tournament to crown the scariest undergraduates.  The first tournament game, involving a dark corridor and glowing orbs that cause body parts to swell on contact, is utterly hilarious and done with Pixar’s brilliant madcap precision.

Amid the athletes versus nerds knockabout games and fun, the film touches on some sensitive, grown-up issues. After all, how do we square our boundless ambitions with the crushing realities of luck and our personal limitations? Scanlon deals honestly and inventively with the hard reality that some talents can’t be taught and some dreams will remain unfulfilled.

We know that Mike and Sully achieve their goal, yet somehow the outcome is never taken for granted. That’s mostly because this movie is daring with its characterisation. It’s rare for a family movie to be built around people who aren’t that likeable, and these two are clearly going about things the wrong way.

Monsters University has a number of plus points. As usual, Pixar delivers on the aesthetic brilliance for which they are known.  The animation is great, especially the extreme facial expressions of the various monsters, which live up to the cuteness bar set by the original. Even when the story slows a bit in places, the exquisite interplay of vibrant pastel hues and almost photorealist textures (so real I was convinced one scene was live action) makes the film a continual pleasure to watch.

Every scene contains so much that is worth admiring: a great line, a shameless but expertly timed sight gag, a swarm of marginal detail; there are times when the film is juggling so many different kinds of pleasure simultaneously that when it adds one more unexpectedly perfect touch, the whole scene seems to erupt like a string of firecrackers. In addition to Crystal, Goodman and Mirren, the voice cast is stellar with Steve Buschemi, Jennifer Tilly, Bonnie Hunt, Alfred Molina and John Krazinski adding to the fun.

The soundtrack from Oscar winner Randy Newman was especially enjoyable. The jazzed-up drumline marching band music has a wide range of emotions and really adds to the film It is Newman's seventh venture with Pixar, and several days on I’m still humming the closing track (March Fourth Marching Band’s ‘Gospel’).

Lastly, make sure you get to the screening on time otherwise you will miss Pixar’s short film The Blue Umbrella that precedes Monsters University. It’s a beautiful and moving little story so breathtakingly realistic, it’s hard to believe its animation.

With only Toy Story 3 being a standout triumph in the past couple of years amid some mediocre releases (Cars 2 anyone?), Monsters University is a welcome return to form for Pixar. Though a prequel, it works well as a standalone film and will satisfy fans of the original with its attractive animation, talented voice acting, and clever gags. Great fun for adults and kids alike, and highly recommended.

Review by Martin Barratt

Monsters University
Genre: Animation/Comedy
Director: Dan Scanlon
Rating: G (General)
Run time: 1 hr 50 mins