Monsters University, A Surprisingly Good Movie

Rating: 7/10 (27 June 2013)

12 years after the first was released into theaters and was a great kids movie all around, comes 'Monsters University', prequel to 'Monsters Inc.' It follows the story of Mike and Sully's days in college before they became monsters who scared kids. I thought that since it's been 12 years, and Disney might have lost it, and that the plot was kind of stupid (Monsters University?) I didn't think it would be that good of a movie. It surprised me, though.
After the title sequence of this movie, it just builds up for a little bit, which is okay, but it just continues to build up. After it's been "building up" for a while, you think... This is just slow! Eventually it does pick up, though. There were some things that happened in this movie that I didn't expect at all, but some things were very predictable. Overall, it's a kids movie, and it was hard to keep that in mind.
As you've seen from the trailers, Mike and Sully are not friends at the beginning of this movie, and one of the plot points in this movie is them slowly becoming friends. I didn't just give you a spoiler, don't freak out. So, I thought that was a good idea because of how they were just friends in 'Monster's Inc.' without explanation. They didn't know each other until college, and they didn't start out as friends. We've kind of seen that before, though. Anyway, even though I thought was a good idea, I didn't think they executed it very well. They're not friends for a while, and when they become friends, it just kind of... Happens really fast. There was a little time building up to them becoming friends, and I could see them becoming friends coming up, but it just happened really fast and you're like "Okay... So... They're, friends now?" So, they could have done that better, but there was a buildup to it.
This movie takes several twists and turns in it. I'll think, "Alright, this is the goal they're going for and this is our story." but it changes like three times until we finally do have our real story. I guess they changed it so much to keep the audience from being bored, but they didn't really succeed. I didn't like that about this movie. It did stop being boring and started being very entertaining when we got to the real story, and one of those reasons is because there's a clear goal Mike is trying to reach, and Sully's on board with him. You want them to win and meet that goal, and when a movie has you rooting for the main characters, I think that's a good thing about it. Also, Mike and Sully having to work together is a good idea, because this was before they became friends. It also started being funny when it got to it's main story line in this movie, because it introduced other characters that carried the laughter, and kind of the story.
This movie is about 1 hour 45 minutes long, which is an almost perfect running time for this type of movie, but almost like, the real story and everything happens in a 1 hour 15 minutes running time. Really, at one point you think it's over, them it twists and something else happens that is a very good idea. I thought it was the best part of the movie.
I rated this 7/10, which means that I thought it was good. Was it as good as the first? No, the first is basically always the best, in my opinion. 'Monsters Inc.' was better and funnier, but 'Monsters University' was a good movie, surprisingly. I thought it was going to be bad, so why did I see it? I have no idea, but I'm glad I did. I recommend 'Monsters University'.