|
A college-centric prequel to Monsters Inc., Monsters University is unfortunate
proof that the animation studio previously known for its brains is now resting a
little too heavily on its nominal brawn.
Monsters Inc.'s success came from the imaginative land of Monstropolis, evoking
a sense of place through nuanced details of urban life and an industrial
workplace. Instead of merely relying on a previously created world, this origin
story envisions the loveable monsters as freshmen undergrads, allowing
storyboard artist turned director Dan Scanlon to reintroduce the central
characters while still creating a new, meticulously detailed campus setting. The
college grounds are dappled with gothic-spired buildings, hacky-sacking
students, and aptly annoying orientation leaders, and the animators approach the
milieu with an acknowledging, whimsical clarity on which Pixar prides itself.
Where Monsters University or: How Pixar Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the
Formula stumbles, though, is the lack of originality it exhibits in its stale
storytelling. The film is primarily seen through the eye of diminutive Mike
Wazowski (voiced again by Billy Crystal), a green ball of sass who's yearned to
be a "scarer" ever since a grade-school trip to the familiar factory where
screams from children are turned into energy. What he lacks in stature he
compensates for in moxie and idealism, and Mike is set on becoming a scarer
despite being told by school bullies that he—more goofy than grotesque in
appearance—doesn't belong on the scare floor. James P. Sullivan, a.k.a. Sulley
(voiced by John Goodman, the deepest-voiced freshman of all time), on the other
hand, is a braggadocios beast from the illustrious Sullivan family of scarers
and, given his imposing figure and naturally loud roar, he looks the role. It's
an uninspired, if expected, dichotomous setup of rivalry, pinning Mike's book
smarts (he's read all the Scare Theory he can get his claws on) versus Sulley's
inherited talents ("You don't need to study scaring. You just need to do it,"
Sulley says, sounding a bit like a naïve art-school brat).
After a scrappy fight between Mike and Sulley during the final exam of Scaring
101, which results in the destruction of a precious souvenir owned by the frigid
Dean Hardscrabble (Helen Mirren), the twosome are kicked out of the program and
forced to switch their major to Scare Can Manufacturing. Grasping at a chance
for redemption and re-entrance into the scaring program, Mike signs up for the
Greek Council's Scare Games ("A super intense scaring competition," the horned,
letter-jacket-wearing meathead organizer shouts). Mike enlists in the tournament
with the only fraternity available, the oddball-filled Oozma Kappa (the nebbish
clans acronym, "OK," lends an amusing, if eventually tiresome, visual gag) and
reluctantly allows former nemesis Sulley to join. Mike brazenly agrees to an
ultimatum with Dean Hardscabble: If his team wins they'll all gain admittance to
the scaring program, and if they lose Mike and Sulley will be expelled from the
university.
The Scare Games—overly reminiscent of certain tournaments for famous young
wizards—occupies more than the second half of the film's overlong, nearly
two-hour runtime; from here, writer-director Scanlon and two co-writers
unimaginatively layer on event after event, eschewing innovative construction in
favor of a predictable and tediously structured run toward the finish line as
the underdogs consistently scrape by each challenge. Their main foes,
unsurprisingly, are preppy, popped-collar alpha monsters and a hardly present
sorority (a regressive step since Pixar released the female-driven
Brave just a year
ago).
Monsters University refreshingly picks up some steam in the home stretch,
showing a glimmer of the original's cleverness as Mike and Sulley must elicit
true horror to scare a more mature audience; the joy of this set piece, however,
is still buried under thematic backlogging, as the Aesopian morality about
cherishing uniqueness, playing off individual strengths, and overcoming failures
through hard work are pressed on even harder.
Despite Monsters University's candy-colored, eye-popping visuals, the
sensibility feels off: The plot is more creaky than creative and the humor more
forced than embedded, leaving the audience to choke on dust instead of laughs.
As an immense fan of Monsters Inc., the recycled callbacks (Randall's
exclamation that he'll never lose to Sulley again, Randall's dorm room poster
touting "The winds of change," similar workout routine montages, and the
desensitization of angsty, unscareable teenagers) are appreciated, but the
original film possessed a seemingly effortless charm that doesn't translate
here. What's most troubling is that Pixar is now borrowing from other
franchises: Revenge of the Nerds by way of Hogwarts, Monsters University adheres
to—instead of paying homage to—uncomfortably typical tropes, opting for
regurgitation over subversion. Lacking in Pixar's trademark sly wit and thematic
maturity, the film is unfortunately representative of the once-peerless
animation studio's further slide toward the creation of merchandising over
magic.
As an offering from Pixar, the studio that set the platinum standard for
contemporary animated features, it's an awful disappointment—and one more reason
to worry about Pixar's future under Disney ownership.
|
