Movie Title: Monsters University
Director: Dan Scanlon
Date Released: June 21st, 2013
Date Seen: June 24th, 2013
Seen with: Dad, Marcela
Part 1 – Spoiler Free Quickie Review
Sully and Mike are back – but this is a time before they were ever friends – at Monsters University. We follow the boys over the course of their first year at school and the story of how they became friends and eventually scare-ers. We see some familiar people such as Randall, Roz, The Abominable Snowman, etc., while also get introduced to a number of cool new monsters. My favorites were the Oozma Kappa brothers – particularly Art and Squishy. Also, Dean Hardscrabble (voiced by the amazing Helen Mirren) is an extremely frightening creature herself.
While not as good as the original, this movie is a still awesome fun for the whole family movie. It will have you laughing, a lot, but doesn’t have the same feel-good quality that Monsters Inc. did. Don’t get me wrong, there are some feel good moments, but nothing as powerful as when Boo is saved by Sulley, or when he opens the door in that final moment of Monsters Inc and you hear her say “kitty!” But this movie was still pretty funny. One of the characters, Art, is a pretty interesting monster, because he’s one of the few non-traditional monsters (in the more humanoid like stance), but then he’s just hilarious. I laughed at his character a number of times. If you go see the movie – during the hide and seek scene, I actually laughed out loud. Then Squishy is pretty hilarious as well. His character is just weird and you want to know more about him – like why is he so squishy – and is he like a wet squishy? You never know.
If you go see this – you will have fun, laugh, and be entertained the whole time. You won’t cry, and won’t come out with memorable lines like you did with Monsters Inc, but you’ll still have a really great time.
Part 2 – In Depth Spoiler Ridden Review
During some parts of this movie – especially with just typical college life, I was thinking “oh my god, this is just like real college.” For example, the insanely creepy, overly happy RA/enrollment people. Why are they so peppy? Lord knows. Also, I liked that all the clubs on campus, some were actually cool, and some weren’t – and not just talking about frats, but about the Astronomy Club, Improv club, etc.
I loved when Squishy got his moment – more than any of the other brothers of Oozma Kappa (which I just now realized is abbreviated as O.K.). Yes, he grabbed the flag in the sneaking challenge – but when he scared in the scaring room was pure gold. That would scare any kid, no matter what, just having someone (monster or otherwise) stand creepily next to your bed like that. I loved it.
If you’re wondering by what I mean by “feel good” moments – it’s just that there wasn’t really any I could think of, at all, except after much thought. The scene where Mike takes all the O.K. brothers to the scare floor and they all realize that scare-ers look different, and everyone can be a scare-er, etc. Other than that though, there weren’t really any. You KNOW that Sully and Mike are going to become friends, you know that they’re going to become scarers, you know they’re going to win that competition (and that Sully was going to cheat), so, it just lost some points for that. I liked that Monsters Inc could make you laugh hysterically, while also make you cry, and then feel amazingly happy all in a period of about 15 minutes. But alas, this movie does not have that.
Overall: 7/10
Almost as good as the original, hilarious, not as adorable, but fun for the whole family.
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