You can always count on Pixar for an emotional, humorous, charming animated feature that brings personality and life to mere objects or fantastical figments of one's imagination. Monsters Inc. is one of my favorite pixar movies as it shows a different side to nightmarish creatures, giving them heart and human goals that everyone can understand. It also cleverly turns the scaring of children into a business, and the life purpose of monsters, who really aren't that bad. My favorite element of Monsters Inc. was the relationship formed between Sully (one of the best scarers played by the voice of John Goodman) and a brave little girl he attempts to frighten but ends up loving instead.
I was excited for Monsters University which is a flashback to the "glory" or not-so-glory days of Sully and Mike Wazowski (Sully's neurotic Jewish monster friend - genius - voiced by none other than Billy Crystal) in college.
While the movie was certainly entertaining, and displayed loveable characters and clever comparisons between our cherished college days to those of monsters (showing the cliques, sorority and fraternity life, various kinds of teachers, etc.), it lacked real heart. I loved the beginning which showed a dimunitive, young, retainer-wearing Mike Wazowski as a teacher's pet (pictured below - so adorable!) (sidenote: why did he wear a retainer - wouldn't gnarled teeth be a good thing as a monster? PLOT HOLE). I could have watched him and the other endearing characters for the entirety of the movie. But once we got to the University section and the bulk of the movie, I wasn't that impressed. I thought the creativity of showing the similarities and differences between Monsters University and a human university was not delved into quite enough, and thus, the story wasn't as funny as it could have been and missed a lot of opportunities. I also felt the true "heart" story which was the budding friendship between two enemies and monsters of a different sort was not pushed enough to evoke the classic Pixar tears.
I guess, my problem was, the stakes weren't high enough. The main low point for the characters occurred when they were kicked out of the scaring program at the university. I can understand that being devastating - professional life-long goals being thrown out the window - but us avid Pixar watchers know that both Mike and Scully do "make it" in the end, so maybe knowing that, made their low point sort of fall flat. Also - the main "bad guy" was a dragon-like stern and brittle professor, who wasn't all that menacing to me and didn't pose such a great threat.
All in all - the movie was fairly entertaining, easy to watch, and inviting (didn't bore me), but I think Pixar missed out on a lot of creative moments that is such a large part of the company's reputation. Here's to hoping the next film is akin to some of the greats, such as Toy Story, Finding Nemo, and Wall-E.
Learn more about Monsters University here: http://disney.go.com/monsters-university/
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