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Sunday, Feb. 2, 2025 | News worth knowing
Wright State Guardian

Monsters University film review

Monsters University gets a passable thumbs up from me.

It’s surprises me that out of all the Pixar movies to turn into a franchise, it’s this film and not The Incredibles.

But I’m getting off track.

Monsters University is the prequel to the 2003 film Monsters Inc., which is still a massively charming movie with some great characters, a creative world and a good story. The film tells the story of monsters that gain all their power from scaring kids. However, one kid breaks through into the monster universe, and they have to get her back. Very nice, very simple and very enjoyable.

In this outing, we see how Mike and Sully first meet, and the trials they go through during their College days.

John Goodman and Billy Crystal reprise their roles as Mike and Sully, and we also have Randall, played again by Steve Buscemi, who is only in the film briefly. However, a whole new cavalcade of characters are introduced.

Unfortunately, a lot of these characters fall into typical college movie personas. The privileged Frat boy, his loud mouth Lackey, the quiet nervous nerdy guy and so on. But that’s not to say there aren’t so funny ones that bring life to the film.

The Dean of the Scare program, voiced by Helen Mirren, is a wonderfully designed monster that has a nice little arc throughout the story and her character actually avoids the typical uptight Dean you’d see from these movies.

Also, a monster named Art voiced by Charlie Day was hilarious. Nearly every line this guy had me laughing. Of course John Ratzenberger has his mandatory cameo, where he reprises his role of the Yeti. Also, to all the Cheers fans, wait till you see where he’s working.

One of the strongest aspects of this film is their addition and building to the world they created and what it means. We do see what it takes to be a “Scarer” and we see what the campus is like.

The worst thing I can say about the film is that it is predictable. We all know what’s going to happen, and with Mike’s main story line (wanting to become a Scarer), a little sadness is involved, especially since we see him put so much time and effort into trying to make his dream come true.

Overall, Monsters University is passable. It is not a strong as other Pixar films, but it’s got some good gags and does add more to the franchise’s world, so it’s an okay film.


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