'Monsters University': Yidio Review

“Monsters University”, Disney and Pixar’s follow-up/prequel to the hit “Monsters, Inc.” has finally hit theaters worldwide. Given Pixar’s recent track record with sequels (“Cars 2”, ew. “Toy Story 3”, yay.), it was hard to know what to expect from them.

Before we get to the nitty gritty reviews, let’s look at the plot of the movie. Beware as it obviously will contain spoilers if you haven’t yet seen the movie.

The movie opens up with 6-year-old Mike Wazowski taking a class fieldtrip to Monsters Inc.. (Since this is a prequel, the events of the first movie, i.e. doing away with the scaring method, haven’t occurred yet obviously.) While on the trip, Mike is thoroughly ignored by his classmates, despite his eagerness to watch some of the professionals scare. To get around that, he decides to sneak into one of the doors behind a professional. Once the class notices, there’s an uproar. He comes out unscathed, of course, but the scarer her followed in decides to compliment him on his sneakiness, citing that he didn’t even know he’d been followed. Mike grasps on to this compliment and decides then and there that he wants to be a scarer when he grows up, and to go to Monsters University to accomplish that.

13 years later, Mike takes his first steps onto the campus of Monsters University. He learns he is roomed with another scaring major, Randall Boggs (the semi-villain from the first movie). They quickly become friends as social outcasts, preferring to study rather than socialize. But Randall longs to be one of the popular kids.

In their first day in the scare program, Mike proves his scare knowledge by answering all the professor’s questions. But midway through answering the question on what makes a good roar, a piercing roar distracts them. James P. Sullivan (Sully) waltzes into the room. The professor is immediately taken by the student and his confidence (read: arrogance). He learns that Sully is the son of a famous scarer, and he eagerly awaits to see more out of him. The students then learn from Dean Hardscrabble, the thoroughly terrifying overseer of the scare program, that they must excel at their final exam that semester if they wish to remain in the scare program.

Jump ahead some more, and Sully is invited into Roar Omega Roar, the elite fraternity on campus, and Mike is overlooked because he’s deemed not scary. Mike and Sully got head-to-head, Mike trying to prove himself to be scary, and Sully just riding the coattails of his dad. This causes them to break into a fight during the final exam, leading to a very scorned Dean Hardscabble. She gives them impromptu exams, and deems Mike not scary, and kicks Sully out for not being knowledgeable enough. Learning that their boy didn’t pass the exams, they kick him out of ROR, and bring Randall in in his place.

The two are forced to pick new majors, and are equally miserable. Mike realizes that he has to prove himself. He decides to sign up for the Scare Games, a set of challenges based on the monster’s ability to scare. However, he realizes that he must be part of a fraternity to join, so he enlists the help of the Oozma Kappa fraternity. He makes a challenge to Dean Hardscrabble, that if he is able to win the Scare Games, to let him back into the scare program. If he loses, he will leave the university. She points out they need one more member, and Sully quickly volunteers. She amends the deal, saying that if they win, she’ll allow all of them to join. They accept.

Jump ahead some more, and OK is winning the scare games, to everyone’s surprise. The final round is at hand, and it’s OK versus ROR. The final challenge is to get the most reaction out of the scare simulator. Sully worries, mainly because Mike just isn’t scary. During his turn, he tampers with the machine, so when Mike’s turn is finally up, the machine spits out its highest rating, despite Mike’s non-scary nature. OK has won the scare games, and everyone celebrates… But Mike notices that Sully cheated, and isn’t too pleased learning that his new friend doesn’t believe he’s scary.

Mike sets out to prove he’s truly scary, so he breaks in to one of the doors to a child’s room. As he’s doing this, Sully confesses to Dean Hardscrabble that he cheated, and she expels him. They are then alerted that someone broke in to one of the doors. Sully knows it’s Mike. They race to the door, and Sully barges in. Mike learns the hardway that he’s just not scary, as the child he attempts to scare just ends up laughing at him… But as he heads back to the closet door, he realizes that he’s in a cabin full of young girls… who are all now staring at him and laughing. His exit to the door is cut off by another girl emerging from her bathroom. He panics and flees into the woods.

As Sully arrives, the cabin in empty, but the police are there, taking reports of a monster. He is spotted, and they think he’s a bear. He runs into the woods and stumbles upon a sulking Mike who says he’s been right all along. Sully convinces him to help them get back, and he needs his brains for that. The two work together to get back into the monster world (and scaring a group of adults in the process in a truly scary scene).

Upon their return, they are both expelled. The other boys of OK have all been accepted into the scaring program, though, so the two are happy for them. As they leave, they are stopped by Dean Hardscrabble who tells them that they surprised her, which is very hard to do. She doesn’t let them back into the program, but she wishes them luck in their future.

The two take jobs in the mailroom of Monsters, Inc., and work their way onto the scare floor after many years of hard work and dedication.

So, on to the review:

This movie surprised me. I don’t know what I was expecting, but I am almost blindly faithful to Pixar, though I had been scorned recently. I can admit that I was pleasantly surprised with this movie, though.

It managed to avoid a lot of the boringness of a prequel mainly by embracing that it was a prequel, and then working to subvert our expectations of clichés. The twist at the end, where they are both expelled and forced to work hard at Monsters, Inc.’s mailroom was a surprise to me, and it was most welcome. Though the implications of it is that their time at Monsters University was essentially pointless, aside from them developing a friendship and a work relationship that stuck with them the rest of their lives.

I also thoroughly enjoyed all the hints and connections to “Monsters, Inc.” It’s almost a game, spotting characters and sets and props that make it into the follow-up movie.

Overall, the movie was a lot of fun, and very suitable for both children and adults. If you’ve seen “Monsters, Inc.”, you have no reason not to watch this. If you haven’t seen “Monsters, Inc.”, you still have no reason not to watch this.