by Nathan Braisted
“Monsters University” is the 2013 prequel film to 2001’s “Monsters, Inc” and is directed by Dan Scanlon (whose name could easily be one of the characters in the movie and I wouldn’t know the difference).
John Goodman and Billy Crystal step back into the roles of James “Sully” Sullivan and Mike Wazowski in one of the most criminally underrated Pixar films.
Before flashing back to their college days, the cold open starts even further back to elementary-school-aged Mike on a field trip to the Monsters, Inc. building pre-Watternoose Scandal that we see in “Monster’s, Inc”. The tour group visits the scare floor and Mike sneaks by security when seeing one of his idol scarers, Frank, going through a door-portal (dortal for short).
The scarer says he didn’t even notice Mike in the human world with him, and Mike earns his respect. Frank tells Mike to attend Monsters University when he grows up and gives him an ‘MU’ hat. Die hard “The Office” fans might know Frank is voiced by John Krasinski, but I just know it because I’m a nerd.
The film flashes forward to Mike arriving at Monsters University and enrolling in the scaring program, along with familiar faces Randall Boggs and Sully.
Despite the events of the original movie, Sully and Mike become rivals. Mike has an incredible work ethic, but lacks natural ability; whereas Sully was born to be a scarer, but never puts forth any effort.
A quick montage displaying their feud leads to an incident where the two accidentally destroy a priceless artifact: the dean’s record scream canister.
She kicks them both from the scaring program and the two enroll in the organic chemistry of the monster world.
The University’s Scare Games begin, which is basically a blend of Greek Week, “Survivor,” and March Madness all in one. Mike and Sully put together a team of misfits and the dean agrees to let them back in the scaring program if their team, Oozma Kappa wins.
My bracket gets busted immediately after Oozma Kappa survives the first round due to another team cheating (everyone knows PNK was the dark horse of the tournament).
Mike and Sully are both selfish in the first challenge but learn to work with each other and their team as the games progresses. They end up getting to the championship matched up against the powerhouse Roar Omega Roar fraternity with the help of another montage.
The final challenge is each member facing the scare simulator turned up to max difficulty. It comes down to the wire, and Mike is the last one up. His record breaking scare wins the Scare Games for Oozma Kappa, but after celebrating and returning to the simulator, he discovers that Sully cheated for him by tampering with the settings.
Discouraged, Mike proves he is scary by sneaking into the human world through an unsupervised dortal (it’ll catch on I swear) and gets trapped with Sully. They then must team up to return to the monster world.
This movie is HEAVILY slept on. With Pixar’s powerhouse lineup of childhood-making movies, “Monsters University” is often overlooked, but I encourage everyone to watch it, and if you’ve already seen it, watch it again.
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