Monsters University

Director: Dan Scanlon

Screenplay: Daniel Gerson and Robert L. Baird and Dan Scanlon (story by Dan Scanlon and Daniel Gerson and Robert L. Baird)

Stars: Billy Crystal (Mike Wazowski), John Goodman (James T. “Sulley” Sullivan), Steve Buscemi (Randy), Helen Mirren (Dean Hardscrabble), Peter Sohn (Squishy), Joel Murray (Don), Sean Hayes (Terri), Dave Foley (Terry), Charlie Day (Art), Alfred Molina (Professor Knight), Tyler Labine (Greek Council VP), Nathan Fillion (Johnny Worthington), Aubrey Plaza (Claire Wheeler), Bobby Moynihan (Chet), Noah Johnston (Young Mike), Julia Sweeney (Ms. Squibbles), Bonnie Hunt (Mrs. Graves), John Krasinski (Frank McCay), Bill Hader (Referee / Slug)

MPAA Rating: G

Year of Release: 2013

Country: U.S.

Monsters University answers the heretofore unasked question of how James T. “Sulley” Sullivan (John Goodman), the big, blue-furry ogre, and Mike Wazowski (Billy Crystal), the squatty, one-eyed green blob, of Monsters Inc. (2001) met. As the title makes clear, it was in college, where Mike and Sulley are incoming freshmen, but of a decidedly different order: Whereas Mike has earned his spot through persistent dedication and hard work to surmount his lowly (literally and figuratively) status as a monster that is, frankly, not very scary, Sulley has cruised into his position by dent of both his inherent physical appearance and his lineage (his father is a well-known “scarer,” which in the world of monsters is the greatest thing you can be, akin to a professional athlete or movie star). The two have nothing in common, physically or otherwise, yet they are thrown together and find that they make a great team, which is always the common denominator of odd-couple comedy.

How, exactly, Mike and Sulley come to be best friends and partners is the chief pleasure of Monsters University, as they chart a course from competitors, to wary allies, to you-complete-me best buds. Despite their vastly different backgrounds and statuses when they first enroll in the titular university, they both wind up on the short end of the administration, kicked out of the much-desired and highly competitive “Scaring” program and finding acceptance in a Revenge of the Nerds-status fraternity, Oozma Kappa, which is populated with a motley crew of decidedly unscary geek-monsters: Squishy (Peter Sohn), a multi-eyed globule with arms and legs who still lives with his overly expressive mom (Julia Sweeney); Don (Joel Murray), a tentacled, mustachioed salesman returning to college late in life; the two-headed Terri and Terry (Sean Hayes and Dave Foley); and Art (Charlie Day), a purple-furry monster in the shape of a U who must be on loan from Jim Henson’s Muppet universe (oh, yeah, Disney owns that too ...). The antagonists are a group of jock-fraternity blowhards who aim to dominate the annual Scare Games, as they always do, and the film’s best gag is the inversion of the physical attributes that define human popularity and power (namely, physical attractiveness and athleticism) into ugliness and scariness. Basically, it isn’t how hot you are, but how scary you are, although the resulting social hierarchy is still the same.

Of course, enjoyable though it may be, there is something slightly disheartening about Monsters University, as it is the third sequel or prequel of the past four years to come from Pixar, which, since Toy Story (1995), has been one of the most reliable generators of entertaining and meaningful original storytelling (the only original story since 2009’s sublime Up was last year’s Brave). With the exception of Toy Story 2 (1999), each of Pixar’s first nine films were original tales, which is all to rare in the world of animation, which tends to fall back on adaptations of familiar stories, bestselling books, legends, and fairy tales (even the great Walt Disney didn’t produce an original story until 1953’s Lady and the Tramp). The increasing number of Pixar films that simply build on previous successes, rather than delving into new realms, is troubling, and the trend has been decided uneven, producing a few great films (Toy Story 2 and 3) and Pixar’s hands-down worst film (Cars 2).

What was so great about Monsters Inc. was its inventive world-making and comic inversion of expectations regarding the relationship between humans and monsters, but all that is dulled in Monsters University because it is forced into a college comedy formula, which eliminates virtually all potential for surprise. Much of the film’s momentum is built around the Scare Games, and because it plays as warm-up for the amusing professionalism of scaring as energy creation in Monsters Inc., there isn’t anything really new or inventive or astonishing, which have always been the hallmarks of Pixar’s best films. Granted, Monsters University does expand on the world created in the original, but not in a way that feels particularly interesting or original. Perhaps because such comic geniuses as Harold Lloyd and John Belushi have already tackled and conquered the college comedy, there isn’t much left to do with the genre, even when given a monstrous spin.

Monsters University Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy

Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
Audio	English Dolby TrueHD 7.1 surround English Dolby Digital 2.0 surround French Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 surround Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 surround
Subtitles	English, French, Spanish
Supplements	Audio commentary by director Dan Scanlon, producer Kori Rae, and story supervisor Kelsey Mann The Blue Umbrella theatrical short film “Campus Life” featurette “Story School” featurette “Scare Games” featurette “Monthropology” featurette “Welcome to MU” featurette “Music Appreciation” featurette “Scare Tactics” featurette “Color and Light” featurette “Paths to Pixar: MU Edition” featurette “Furry Monsters” featurette Deleted scenes Set Flythroughs Art Gallery Promo Picks
Distributor	Walt Disney Home Entertainment
SRP	$45.99
Release Date	October 29, 2013

VIDEO & AUDIO
I didn’t get the opportunity to review the Blu-ray 3D edition of Monsters University, but the 2D version is plenty stunning. The 1080p/AVC-encoded image is absolutely gorgeous, with enough fine detail to keep aspiring artists busy for hours just soaking in all the nuances of the characters and settings. Monsters University is a notably bright and colorful film, particularly the scenes on campus, which are punctuated with just about every color in the rainbow, all of which are beautifully and flawlessly presented. When the film does go darker, such as the sequence in which Mike and Sulley find themselves in the human world, black levels are spot-on and shadow detail is consistently impressive (contrast is also excellent, as evidenced in the scene inside the cabin with the rangers and their flashlights). The immersive Dolby TrueHD 7.1 surround is also excellent, with first-rate clarity and creative use of the surround channels to ensure that all the film’s clever sound effects reach maximum impact.
SUPPLEMENTS
The supplements on Monsters University are pretty generous, although several of them seemed designed to pummel us with the idea that, whatever job we may have, it is nowhere near as cool as working at Pixar. Of the 10 featurettes (which run anywhere between 5 and 15 minutes in length), three of them are dedicated primarily to documenting the wonderful working world of Pixar: “Campus Life,” which follows many of the principal collaborators on the film over a typical work day (which includes swing dance lessons in the evening and one of the tastiest looking cafeterias I’ve ever seen); “Scare Games,” which documents how the different departments played competitive games against each other (including dodgeball and beer pong) while working on the film; and “Paths to Pixar: MU Edition,” another entry in the continuing series that documents how various Pixar employees wound up working at the company from unexpected places (including one animator who was initially trained and worked as a doctor in Korea). The other featurettes are all focused on different aspects of the film’s production: “Story School” highlights the work of the story artists who are the first to take a crack at visualizing the script; “Monthropology” shows us how the filmmakers tackled the challenge of creating more than 250 different monsters for the film; “Music Appreciation” covers the film’s scoring sessions; “Scare Tactics” looks at the process by which the filmmakers developed the various means of scaring in the film (as well as the complex world of animator lingo); “Color and Light” shows us both the importance of preproduction paintings and the process of lighting the different scenes; and “Furry Monsters” revisits the challenge of developing computer software to animate millions of individual hairs on Sulley, a process that was created for Monsters Inc. and further refined over the years. The disc also includes an informative and engaging audio commentary by director Dan Scanlon, producer Kori Rae, and story supervisor Kelsey Mann; The Blue Umbrella, the poignant short film that played before Monsters University in theaters; four deleted scenes with introductions by Scanlon, all of which were cut at the storyboard stage (they are presented as animatics with scratch tracks); a dense and multilayers series of art galleries highlighting “Characters,” “Color Keys,” “Development Art,” “Environments,” and “Graphics”; 14 minutes of trailers and promos; and, one of my favorites, the Set Flythroughs, which take us on a vertiginous virtual journey through the incredibly detailed sets of the entire university, the Scare School, Fraternity Row, and the Oozma Kappa house.

Thoughts? E-mail James Kendrick

Overall Rating: (2.5)