Pokematic Monster's University Review

The prequel to Monsters Inc. How will it fair when compared to the original? How will the college setting work with a Pixar film aimed at kids?

If it's not a good game or catholic...who do you call?...why Pokematic. "Hi."

So I just saw Monster's University. For those of you who don't know, this is the prequel to Monsters Inc, which is a great movie in it's own right. But this isn't about Monster's Inc, so let's get to Monster's University. But before the review, let's look at the timing of release. MU was released 12 years after MI, so now the kids who saw the original are in college, like yours truly. So make a movie that is part of people's childhood and make it take place where those people are now. Good going Pixar. But now to the review.

So here's the story. Mike Wazouski just enrolled in the scare program at monster's university, but gets kicked out because "he's not scary." Me meets James Sullivan, a young man, or monster, who comes from a family of great scarers. He flunks out of the program. Now they have only one way back in, and that's to win the scare games, a competition between all the fraternities and sororities to be called "the best scarers." But since it's a Greek competition, Mike needs to join a frat, and the only one that will accept him is the loser frat, and Sully joins them because they need another member and he got kicked out of the top frat. Now they must overcome great difficulty in their lack of ability to scare.

Because this is a prequel to Monsters Inc, most of your favorite characters are present, mainly Mike, Sully, and Randal, or in this movie, Randy. Other characters make cameos, such as George that always had to get cleaned. But this is really Mike's movie. Sure, Sully is a main character, but it's ultimately Mike trying to prove to everyone that he has what it takes to be a top scarer. Fans of Mike, rejoice in the fact. I like this since the original Monsters Inc was more Sully's movie than Mike's. Though things are a little formulaic in the beginning and middle, there's some real twists at the end. But I won't spoil.

As I mentioned earlier, this movie was released at the time when most of the kids that saw the original are in college, and they really play on this fact. I was laughing hysterically at the orientation montage because...it's exactly like that in the real world. You got all the over-enthusiastic orientation leaders with all their school spirit talking about how awesome the school is. Then there's the balancing a social life with college work and so many other nods to what new students face in the real world. After the real world problems, we get to the Greek life competition, and it kind of feels like the competition in Revenge of the Nerds. It's not really a reference to Revenge of the Nerds, but definitely pays homage and probably drew inspiration from Revenge of the Nerds. All the parents and grandparents, and other older, non-college students who saw the original as a kid, viewers will probably like that aspect. And then the college kids will like "so much like real college" aspects.

Now I gotta say I really like how the animation has improved over the years. Though it's been a little while since I saw the Monsters Inc, like 3-4 years at the time of writing this, I don't remember all the specific aspects of the animation of the original, but I can say that it definitely wasn't as detailed as this movie. Sully's fur is so detailed and waves with motion it's great. It's definitely not the most detailed animated movie, but it's pretty darn detailed. A great improvement on the animation of the original, but I should expect this with how advanced technology is now when compared to the tech of 12 years ago.

Before I give my verdict, I need to talk about the short that happened before the movie, The Blue Umbrella. In this short, all the objects you'd find in a city such as a cross walk signal, a road construction sign, a manhole cover, drain pipe, ect. are all animate, well sort-of. They aren't animate like Brave Little Toaster animate with eyes that appear out of no-where and able to walk on their own, and talk, or stuff like that. Their eyes are typically screws that are part of their design, or in the case of the building, windows. Their mouths are part of their item, like the outlet part of the drain pipe is the mouth and the screws that attach it to the building are the eyes. The only things that have "a face out of no-where" are the umbrellas, and even they are relatively believable since they only appear once the rain starts and it's a darker tint of the fabric of the umbrella. But what really sells it, is that the items can only do that which is within the natural, real world, abilities of the items. One such example is the drain pipe from earlier; it is fastened in pace to the building and can only control the water that it lets out. But what makes things even more awesome, is that it's completely mute, as in all you hear is the background music. No one talks and they convey emotion based on the small bends in their "mouths" and the position of their "eyes." Really cool.

If it isn't obvious by now, this is a must see, for everyone. The kids will like the whole "animated monsters going to school" thing. The teens and college students will enjoy the nostalgia and "it's just like real life." The older adults will enjoy the memories and Revenge of the Nerds aspect. But all in all, it's a great movie, well written, well animated, and full of fun for the whole family. Well this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

Ahhh, I see you waited around for a secret ending. Well this movie also has a secret ending after the credits. Stick around until after the credits for a great joke. And you'll be entertained by the credits since it has funny "signs" you'd find on a college billboard, like "looking for a roommate, NO SLIME, NO SHEDDING." Enjoy.