So far the Summer Movies of 2013 have been rather mediocre. Monsters University was one film I was stoked about seeing because I loved Monsters, Inc. Sequels are often cynical ploys by Hollywood’s accountants to make a quick, lazy buck but Pixar proved this criticism wrong with Toy Story 2 and 3. Then Disney’s poison took hold with the unbearably dull Cars 2 and disappointing Brave; too much Larry the Cable Guy who isn’t funny and a princess flick sans musical numbers respectively. I thought Pixar would regain its mojo by bringing back Mike, Sully and their crazy world on the other side of the closet door.
Nope. They stuck with the Lowest Common Denominator tent-pole strategy.
In Pixar’s defense, they didn’t make a horrendous insufferable prequel aimed at the Wal-Mart crowd, aka Cars; and divorced dads needing something to anchor their weekend with the kids. It’s way better than Ice Age‘s ad nauseum tripe yet Pixar was the studio that raised the standards on storytelling with animation so its computer-generated stuff wouldn’t be a novelty.
What made Inc. memorable and unique for me was the immensity of the door storage facility. Remember the frenetic pace as the characters jumped from door to door? All the locations they popped in and out of while pursuing Randall? Even in 2-D it could give you motion sickness.
University is Revenge of the Nerds without the sex, drugs, racism and toilet jokes. It doesn’t introduce any new technologies to demonstrate Pixar’s innovation. It doesn’t show anything new about the Monster world. There was nothing to differentiate University from the crap churned out by Dreamworks. With Planes on the horizon in August, I must sadly agree with the other reviewers that Pixar’s golden touch is gone, even the opening short is lame; if you saw Paper Man, you’ll be experiencing deja vu with Blue Umbrella.
Alamo Extras: A couple Pixar shorts, Billy Crystal and John Goodman’s appearances on Sesame Street, the Inc. blooper reel and the predecessor of Cookie Monster eating a computer from a Sixties TV show. My Monsters shake wasn’t as gross as Somara feared, it was just vanilla with Gummi Bears at the bottom.