Prequel fun for whole family

Rating: 7/10 (30 June 2013)

With Hollywood constantly mining old successful franchises for new ideas, it's no great surprise that Pixar should go back to Sulley and Mike from 'Monsters Inc.'
The prequel, 'Monsters University' takes place at college, where Mike (voiced by Billy Crystal) is a hard-working idealist desperate to become a professional scarer despite his small stature. By contrast, Sulley (voiced by John Goodman) is cruising by on his family name and relies on his natural scaring ability. After being kicked out of MU's elite scaring school Mike and Sully join a fraternity full of forgotten monsters – Oozma Kappa - to compete in the "Scare Games". From there the film hits all the right buttons as Mike and Sulley, who initially hate each other, work together to make their fraternity competitive against the strong fraternities, while trying to impress the scary Dean Hardscrabble (voiced by Helen Mirren) to get back into scaring school. Along the way there are well-intentioned messages of believing in yourself regardless of size or ability. The unusual monsters from Oozma Kappa (including a retrenched salesman, a two-headed monster constantly in battle with himself and a squishy mamma's boy) provide some easy laughs.
'Monsters University' may not try anything new, but it doesn't need to. The chemistry between Mike and Sulley carries the film and – although it doesn't reach the same emotional heights as the best Pixar films (the 'Toy Story' franchise, 'Wall-E' and 'Up') – it's still an enjoyable family film and a lot better than most cynically churned out prequels.