Spectacular Monster Inc prequel, Great job Pixar!

Rating: 10/10 (6 October 2015)

In 2001, Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios pleased millions of movie goers with their animated hit film Monster Inc which told the story of two friends: a blue, furry monster named Sully (voiced by John Goodman) and a green, one-eyed monster named Mike (voiced by Billy Crystal), who worked together for a corporation where monsters creep into bedrooms of little children and scare them to sustain their cities' energy and power resources with the frightened children's screams. Twelve years later, Pixar takes the audience back in time to when Mike and Sully first met during their college days with this prequel to Monster Inc. These two attend college at Monsters University, starting off on each other's not-so-good sides but are forced to work together to compete against the fraternities in the scare games. Joining Oozma Kappa, an unpopular fraternity of social misfits including Scott "Squishy" Squibbles, middle-aged Don Carlton, Terry Perry and Terri Perry (who are conjoined twins), Art, and Squishy's mother Sherri, Mike and Sully develop a friendships as they compete against the odds of prodigy fraternities, including the prestigious Roar Omega Roar.
So this movie plays almost like a cross between college comedies such as Revenge of The Nerds (1984) and Old School (2003) with its subplots involving fraternities and mixes with family-friendly humor, and the result is a cute and clever Pixar film that will without a doubt please the whole family. While it may not feel slightly inferior to Pixar's other works, it still has the style and flair that Disney-Pixar films embrace. Featuring the talented voices of John Goodman, Billy Crystal, Steve Buscemi, Helen Mirren, Peter Sohn, Joel Murray, Sean Hayes, Dave Foley, and Charlie Day, this film boasts an entertaining, if not original, story line of how Mike and Sully became the friends that we knew from the first film. The plot follows on these characters who are kicked out the "Scare Program" due to their failure being "scary" and work together by joining a fraternity to make their way back into the program, but face the odds of an expert Roar Omega Roar who find their fun in ridiculing them for their inferiority. There definitely isn't a whole lot of emotionality like Pixar's other films, but that's okay! This film doesn't need it as it has the charm and clever hilarity to make up for it. The animation is pretty solid and the voice acting is fantastic.
Monsters University is a pretty decent family movie and this is all thanks to the brilliant work of Pixar. Even if it doesn't live up to Disney-Pixar's usual fare, it is still a film that will make a good choice for children and adults of all ages.