Verdict: A long, laughless
Pixar misfire that plays it deadly straight.
Prequels, like sequels,
can be difficult films to make work in their own right – and this prequel to
2001’s hugely successful Monsters, Inc. suffers from running overtime (with
young ones obviously struggling to stay the distance), and its over-populated
character list that results in bloat and clutter.
Monsters University tells
the story of how one-eyed monster Michael Wazowski (voiced by Billy Crystal)
met his pal, the big blue monster James P Sullivan (John Goodman), at, well,
university. Under the watchful gaze of Dean Abigail Hardscrabble (Helen
Mirren), Michael and James must overcome their natural inability to be truly
scary in order to keep their place in the university’s prestigious ‘scare
program’. Finding themselves relegated to a group of misfits – the university’s
Oozma Kappa fraternity who operate from a quaint suburban house – the unlikely
group of timid monsters must use all their resources to ensure they have a
future as the truly scary monsters they dream of becoming.
There is no doubting the
effectiveness of the splendid animation on show here, but there is little of
the sheer creative adventurousness we have come to love, admire, and expect
from Pixar (Toy Story, A Bug's Life, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Cars, WALL-E).
Gerson, Baird and Scanlon’s screenplay is a limp, cheerless affair that gives
the impression of being stuck in an endless loop of deadly earnestness that
appears to be have been so keen to secure a G rating that its neglected to
include anything of genuine interest.
The one sequence that
comes close to inspirational, is when Michael and James inadvertently find
themselves trapped in the human world – where in order to return to the
monster’s realm, they must scare a group of policeman half to death. As
beautifully done as it is (with a fine line about learning to accept our
strengths and our weaknesses equally), it also achieves nothing more than to
pad out a film that could have done with a major injection of laughs and some
form of interesting conflict.
As it stands, Monsters
University is a harmless and humourless affair that will keep the kids
interested for at least half of its running time. Good luck with the other
half.
This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.
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