August 04, 2013

MOVIES: Monsters University (Dan Scanlon, 2013)

In which Pixar wastes considerable effort on a remake of Revenge of the Nerds.

Mike and Sully meet as college students (a blatant contradiction of their backstory as estalished in Monsters Inc.), and wind up stuck in the nerdiest frat on campus, with whom they must win a campus competition in order to remain in school.

Monsters University is a pleasant enough movie, but it's not nearly as good as Monsters Inc., and by Pixar standards, it's a disappointment. There was one really terrific sequence, in which Mike and Sully find themselves stranded in the human world; those five minutes could have been the inspiration for a really interesting movie. The punchlines fall flat, and aside from John Goodman and Billy Crystal in the leads, there's not much of interest in the voice acting. Nathan Fillion is probably best of the supporting players, doing a variation on Captain Hammer, his arrogant blowhard from Dr. Horrible.

The short that played before the movie, "The Blue Umbrella," was a bit of goopy sentiment not nearly at the usual level of Pixar shorts. Very meh.

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