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Saturday, June 22, 2013

The Old College Try

Film: Monsters University
Format: Sycamore Theater.

Read this blog for a couple of weeks and you start to figure out that I don’t go to the theater that often. Read it for half a year, and you’d guess I never go. My trips to the theater are pretty limited. I don’t love movies in the theater. I mean, I like the giant screen and the surround sound. I don’t like the everyone else in the place. Make it a film designed for kids and fill the theater with children who haven’t learned that they aren’t sitting at home and should shut the hell up, and, well…that’s why I don’t go to the theater that much.

However, Kid #1 is off to Atlanta today for five weeks of intensive ballet. Monsters University opened. It was a last family night together until the end of July, so we went—the first theater visit of 2013 for yours truly. I didn’t go in with massive expectations. Sure, it’s a Pixar film, but it’s also a sequel. Were we going to get Toy Story 3 or Cars 2?

The answer is neither. These days, Disney starts its films with shorts, and Monsters University is no different. The short this time is called The Blue Umbrella, and it’s essentially last year’s Oscar-winning animated short Paperman done with a different, less effective animation style and a couple of brightly-colored umbrellas. Sadly, it’s pretty forgettable. From there, we jump into the main feature.

To follow the basic plot of Monsters University, you’ll need to remember the basics from Monsters Inc. What you need to recall is that the monster world uses the energy derived from the screams of young children to power their world. This is done by having professional scarers creep into the human world through specially constructed closet doors. We learn in the opening that the little round, green, one-eyed Mike Wazowski (Billy Crystal) has been fascinated by scarers since he was a little social outcast in monster grade school.

Fast forward to college. Mike attends Monsters University (which is a catchy name for a film) as a scaring major. And it’s here that the film begins to play with our knowledge of the previous film as well as our expectations in this one. Mike enters his dorm room telling himself that behind the door will be his best friend for life, and it turns out to be the college-age version of the first film’s villain, Randall Boggs (Steve Buscemi). Our two heroes from Monsters Inc. don’t meet until the first day of class where we learn that Mike is something of a teacher’s pet and Jimmy Sullivan (John Goodman) is a slacker who has gotten by on native talent and the reputation of his father.

A rivalry starts between the two and culminates in a showdown that eventually earns the wrath of school dean Abigail Hardscrabble (Helen Mirren), who responds by kicking both of them out of the program. This is devastating for Mike, who has dreamed of a career in scaring his whole life. For Sully, it means destroying the family tradition and being booted out of his new fraternity, Roar Omega Roar, headed by Johnny Worthington (Nathan Fillion). Shortly after this, the campus holds a scare contest and Mike decides to enter it. To do so, he needs a fraternity, and the only one that will have him is Oozma Kappa, the campus nerds. Mike gets Dean Hardscrabble to agree to let the entire fraternity into the scaring program if they win, and agrees that he will leave the school if his team loses. But they have only five members and need six to compete. Naturally, their sixth member is a reluctant Jimmy Sullivan, who agrees based on the possibility of getting back into the scaring school. The rest of the team is made up of Don Carlton (Joel Murray), downsized middle-aged salesman returning to school; Terry/Terri (Dave Foley and Sean Hayes respectively), a two-headed monster, one of which is a dance major; Art (Charlie Day), a purple new-age philosopher with giant legs; and Scott “Squishy” Squibbles (Peter Sohn), with multiple eyes and even more social phobias. Their fraternity house is actually Squishy’s home, which means they all live with his mom (Julia Sweeney).

If you guess that what follows is going to be an animated, kid-friendly version of Revenge of the Nerds, you guessed right. The Oozmas luck through the first two events, realize that everyone on their team has particular skills and qualities, and start to work together until the big final confrontation where each member of the teams needs to “scare” a human child in the simulator.

I don’t want to spoil the film, so I won’t go into what happens. Suffice to say that I’m of mixed feelings on the ultimate message of the film. There are some real positives here—Dean Hardscrabble, who goes through much of the film as the main obvious villain, turns out to not be that much of a villain in the end. She’s strict, she’s a bit draconian (yes, that’s a pun you’ll get when you see her), but she’s not bad or evil. She’s intimidating and demanding without being cruel or heartless. The RORs are much more sadistic and cruel.

On the other hand, a great deal of the third act comes down to a single point—Mike Wazowski is about as scary as a litter of baby bunnies. He wants desperately to be a scarer and has dreamed of it his whole life. And he can’t do it. It’s kind of a brutal message to send to kids; there are dreams that you will have that you will never realize because of your own limitations. Oh, sure it all ends on a high note, but that does seem kind of cruel.

I will say this—I appreciate very much how the end works out and how it all ties into the first film. Since this is a prequel, there is a certain point that we must reach to get to that first film, and we’re left at a point that seems like it would be impossible to make that happen. We do get there through a pretty inventive sequence. Most importantly, based on how the plot of Monsters University finishes, we get there honestly without shortcuts or deus ex machina.

Best of all, Monsters University is Pixar back in form. This is a smart movie and a funny one. I laughed multiple times at it, and so did my wife. Most importantly, so did my kids. If you haven’t seen Monsters Inc. in a few years, you’ll want to brush up to get some of the really good jokes, but even without a refresher, there’s a lot here that makes this one fun on its own.

Oh...this is my 1,000th post. Go me.

Why to watch Monsters University: Hey, it’s Pixar.
Why not to watch: It’s also recycled from other films you know.

18 comments:

  1. Congrats! I thought we'd celebrated #1000 some time ago... but what the hey. Again, congrats!

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  2. 1000th review from The List. This is the 1000th overall post.

    And, thanks.

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  3. I was going to see this Friday, but I just wasn't that excited for it (or World War Z). I need to see both for my Big Summer Movies posts. The movie I really wanted to see was Joss Whedon's take on Much Ado About Nothing, but even though it was supposed to be opening wide this weekend no theater near me was carrying it.

    I'll probably get out Monday for one of these. (I avoid theaters on the weekends like the plague).

    Congrats on 1,000 (again). When is your next 39th birthday? :-)

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  4. 35th birthday. And in about four months. This year will my 12th 35th birthday.

    And I think I'm out of 1000s to hit.

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  5. Congrats Steve. Monsters University is on cinema schedule in a week or two as a children event. Sounds as if they will like it.

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    1. I had a frank conversation with my 10-year-old about it yesterday. She liked it. She thought it was fun and funny. But she also thought it wasn't nearly as good as Monsters Inc., which happens to be her favorite movie.

      In the same conversation, she mentioned how angry she is that Smurfs 2 comes out soon and how frustrating it is that so many of her friends liked the first one. If I didn't have proof that she was my kid, I think that would cover it.

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  6. I also saw Monsters University last weekend at a birthday party for a friend's kid. It was the first time I'd gone to the movies with my four-year-old daughter, so that was great. The 110-minute running time made her get antsy, but not until the last 15 minutes. That's pretty amazing given her energy level. I'm way ahead of you on theater visits! I've had three this year, and they're all sort of random (Side Effects, Oblivion, Monsters University).

    I'm in a similar boat to you on this movie. I enjoyed it and think Pixar did a lot of things right, but I wasn't blown away by it. Even so, it was breezy and didn't try too hard to connect every little part to the first movie. That was a relief and made it feel different despite having a lot of the same characters.

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    1. Yep--it's an entirely serviceable family film. It's funny, well-made, and kids will enjoy it. Parents will like it, too.

      I think we tend to get spoiled by Pixar and expect something truly groundbreaking and moving every time. This isn't that, but that's okay.

      So, did your daughter enjoy it? If it kept her attention that long, my guess is that she did.

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    2. I think so. It probably helped that she got free popcorn and M&M's for the party, so that kept her occupied for a while. I wasn't sure how much she was into it at first, but she screamed out (very loudly) "He won! He won!" at the big moment, so I think she was into it. Near the end, she started asking if it was over, but she was pretty immersed in it for 90 minutes.

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    3. I can't think of something specific I would cut to pare it down. If I had to cut it down for shorter attention spans...I think I'd get rid of the umbrella short.

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    4. The short was strangely unexciting, despite the cute premise. I didn't find it in need of cuts. I only recognized it because Elise got a bit antsy. Still, she did very well.

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    5. I don't think it really needed cutting, either--I was just thinking that for shorter attention spans, the length might be problematic.

      I felt very much like I'd seen the short before. Y'know, before Wreck-it Ralph last year.

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  7. "The short this time is called The Blue Umbrella, and it’s essentially last year’s Oscar-winning animated short Paperman done with a different, less effective animation style and a couple of brightly-colored umbrellas."

    Yep. There are some excellent Pixar shorts, but this one was kind of meh. The thing that distinguished it was the photo-realism of the city streets. Amazing!

    I liked it and agree it was smart and funny. Not the best of Pixar, but quite good and set up Monsters Inc. very nicely.

    Now I just wish Pixar would challenge me again and make me cry like they do in their very best films.

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    1. Yeah, the photography was cool, but I found it difficult to care that much about an umbrella.

      It isn't the best Pixar, but it's far from the worst. Their best films are cry-inducing (Monsters Inc. still chokes me up). I'd be happy with a return to that, or, a return to bad-assery and a sequel to The Incredibles. Please?

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  8. The Incredibles is my favorite Pixar film and I completely agree that it needs a sequel, indeed, it's the only Pixar film demanding a sequel. Ironically, it's one of the ones that hasn't made me cry.

    I have shed tears at Toy Story, Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, Ratatouille, and Up. A pretty good record.

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    1. The Incredibles is my favorite as well. And it even has a sequel set up by the end of the first film. And everyone wants it. Seems like a no-brainer.

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  9. "I like the giant screen and the surround sound. I don’t like the everyone else in the place."

    You've hit EXACTLY on why I'd much prefer to watch a film at home. I may not have the world's biggest screen and I've only got glorious stereo rather than surround (and so many of my favourite films are only in mono anyway), but at least there's usually no one else in the room to bug me. (And I'm far more bugged by adults than children, cos adults should be old enough to know better. Of course, "should" is nice in theory...)

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    1. Adults should know better, but those who don't know better are the ones who raise the kids who talk in the theater.

      Another big reason for me, though, is that I don't always have 3 hours of uninterrupted time to devote to a film.

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