Movie Review : Monsters University

 

 

The prequel to the hit Monsters Inc. finally hit theaters this past week which brings back Sully ( John Goodman ) and Wazowski ( Billy Crystal ) together as we see them back in the day when they first meet each other.

 

Film starts with Wazowski on a field trip to a factory and shows how is ostracized by fellow monsters but how one worker sets him on the path to wanting to be a scarer. He arrives at Monster's University once of age and enrolls in the scare program. While he is mentally adapt of being a scarer but as a walking eyeball he does not visually scare. He meets carefree Sully who is going through life on his name as his bloodline is rich in history of excelling in scaring. Soon due to incident they both find themselves kicked out of the school program.

 

While trying to figure out what individually their next game plan will be Wazowski enters the "Scare Games" which is basically like the Greek Games from the movie Revenge of the Nerds which this movie reminds me a lot of. Sully joins the team with resistance from Wazowski but has to reluctantly accept him if he hopes to win. Wazowski convinces the school's headmaster if they win they will be let back into the program but if they don't win they have to leave the school all together.  

 

The next 40 minutes or so we see the team compete against physically better teams and how they are able to gel and compete as a team and use their individual strengths to propel the team to the inevitable clash with the university's alpha team for all the marbles and the chance to get back into the scare program.

 

In the end Sully and Wazowski are faced with a moral dilemma and how a situation was handled and what that will do for their future at the university. How that is handled is how they are to be perceived by their peers. In the end as this is a prequel we know they will be together in future and we see their first job together and what the future holds for them.

 

Verdict : I loved the first movie but this one left me wanting. For me it just didn't have the soul as the first film had. There were plenty of laughs but they were fewer and further apart than the first time we saw them. This was a fine movie but the back and forth between all the characters didn't have that "bite" as we have seen previously. I will give it a THUMBS UP to a viewing but unless the kids drag you I would say you could wait for the Blu Ray release.