Slightly inferior to the first, but still a fun ride

Rating: 6/10 (10 November 2013)

"Monsters University" is a very entertaining slightly over 100 minutes. 12 years after the first Monster film, we finally get a sequel, or I should probably say prequel. Quite a long time if you keep in mind that it took them not even half as long for the sequel to Cars. However, if the result is as good as this film, it was certainly worth the wait. "Monsters University" had me interested right from the start with that pigeon creature that would have deserved its own short film. One similarity to the original film is that here we have another very dominant female character in one of the central roles, probably even bigger than Roz (who has a funny short cameo with her disease protection squad) in the first film. It's a headmistress that looks a bit like one of the female characters from the animated series "Dinosaurs" and is voiced by Helen Mirren. What I liked even more here was the final action sequence. The original had the chase scene at the door fabrication area, which I found the weakest part of the film. This one has Sully and Mike in the shack scaring grown-ups, which was one of the highlights and almost a bit of animated horror on the level of "Coraline". Really well done. The biggest deficit of the new film, however, is the emotional impact. The story of Mike and Sully's friendship growing (even if it's occasionally really well translated to the screen) and, directly linked thereto, the story of Mike's road to scariness (this confused me a bit as Mike was just an assistant to Sully's scaring and seemed to have no own ambitions in the original) just doesn't reach the same heights of Sully and Boo and with Boo missing obviously as she's probably not even born yet, the whole cuteness aspect is missing too.
That being said, in terms of comedy, it's still a big success with many funny moments. I can't list them all, but hardly was there a minute in which you didn't smile. Pretty much half of the film consists of different fraternity challenges that are so much fun to watch thanks to all the colorful characters. It's likable loser monsters vs. the prestigious fraternity of bullies. There's a huge quantity of new characters introduced actually and sometimes it can hurt a film a lot, but not here, although I would have liked Celia to appear in a somewhat bigger part than just on a photo from a locker. All the creatures were created with great attention to detail and their actions and interactions are a feast. The idea and in detail functionality of the scare simulators are another genius stroke by Pixar, possibly the best part of the film aside from the monsters.
To sum it all up, "Monsters University" is a must-watch for animation lovers (Pixar, enough said) and those who watched and loved the first film in their younger years. All the college references make it a very worthy watch for students as well. Imagine your fraternity brother dating your mother. Oh my God! Some say Pixar's glory days are over, but if that is how they look when they suck, I want to see them suck for a long long time. I preferred "Monsters University" over "Ratatouille" (which is fun too), "Wall-E" (which I never got the hype for) and "Up" (where I only really liked the first 20 minutes). And Pixar, please don't make us wait for another decade till the third Monster movie happens. Don't be the snail from this movie!