Monster's University: 6/10

Pixar, where has your courage gone?

In this decade alone, we have been treated to two sequels, a prequel, a princess story (as if Disney doesn’t have enough of those), with another sequel on the way. Pixar’s Dreamworks mannerisms has been kind of unnerving, especially when we have seen the ballsy efforts like The Incredibles, Ratatouille, and especially (especially) Wall-E. The original stories are occurring less frequent, and while it’s leading to guaranteed money for the company and Disney the diehard Disney fans and film fanatics have been less than impressed.

And now we have Monster’s University. Surely the charm is there, the animation is the usual Pixar quality, and the production value remains the best in the animation business. But there was a constant sense of pointlessness to this prequel throughout the whole thing, and it lacks the heart and humor of the original Monster’s Inc. The originality of the 2001 gem is also missing, as University dwells into familiar clichéd territory in the second half.

This movie works well with the tykes and the true-blue Mike and Sully fans, but with the rest of us who really didn’t care much to see how they met----well, there’s not much here. It is simply about Mike and Sully’s rivalry during the start of their university career and how they had to learn to accept each other if they ever wanted a chance to remain in the school.

In the grand scheme of the G-rated filmmaking culture, Monster’s University excels and surpasses that of the normal fare. But this is Pixar we are talking about, a company that bleeds pure quality and has created some of the greatest animated films in history. They have raised the bar too high to create something so….normal. It is odd from a Pixar movie to see failed jokes and a sense of predictability.

It’s not as funny, not as heartfelt, not as surprising, not as deep, and not as engaging as Pixar’s best, and not even Dreamworks’ best for that matter. It is simply light entertainment that will calmly entertain and not overwhelm---while at the same time not linger in your memory like Pixar’s best like Toy Story, Nemo, Ratatouille and Up.


Good but not great—and in Pixar standards that should never be good enough.