Monsters Univeristy

Rating: 8/10 (9 July 2013)

Since 2011, you could say Pixar films have been a little down. Cars 2 was a poor sequel that struggled with it's story and did not the capture the heart of the original. Brave from 2012 has a solid following but you can find non-fans of it unlike most other pixar films. This would make you wonder what was left of such a powerful animation company especially when you had a prequel coming in 2013 to a very popular movie Monsters Inc.
Monsters University, prequel to the 2001 movie Monsters Inc, and follows the characters of Mike Wazowski (Billy Crystal) and Sulley (John Goodman) during their university days where both of them have dreams of becoming scarier monsters. Their ultimate goal is to work for Monsters Inc. at a job involving scaring kids to provide energy for the city. At Monsters University, they play in some university scare game, interact with the popular monsters and groups at the school and learn how to be friends with each other.
In a way, the film rehashes much of what we have seen before. The lead characters are the same and we know their in's and outs and the university games idea has been played out in other movies like Revenge of the Nerds. Of course, Mike Wazowski and Sulley are characters you can root for with one being a nerd and jock and its should be noted that the voice work solid with both of them all the way through. Mike and Sulley makes us look at what a friendship is all about and can happen regardless of people's different interests and background.
The animation is solid, crisp and on par with previous Pixar films. The scares challenges and games are creative and full of adventures and provide an interesting atmosphere while bringing in new fraternity characters. Through it all, the whole university idea is new and original to the animation world and it really worked here.
While this is not a ground-breaking movie nor Pixar's best, Monsters University is still quite solid. It is a sequel (but as mentioned earlier really a prequel) geared towards the whole family that has a big heart and really works.