Pixar spent the 2000s building a reputation for the gut-punch. Monsters University opens with a different kind of punch: a small green monster sneaking through a door he was told not to touch, because he wants to see how the trick works.
That instinct — the need to know how scaring is done — is the whole engine of Monsters University. It is a prequel to Monsters, Inc., released in 2001, and it takes two characters audiences already loved and asks a question the first film never bothered with: how did Mike Wazowski and James P. “Sulley” Sullivan become friends at all?
The answer is that they started as rivals. Dan Scanlon directed and wrote the film with Dan Gerson and Robert L. Baird. It runs 104 minutes. It is an animated family comedy with a fantasy setup, and it premiered at the BFI Southbank in London on June 5, 2013, before opening in the United States on June 21.
Trailer, via Disney UK.
Mike Wazowski and the Scaring Program
The first act belongs to Mike. As a child, he visits the Monsters, Inc. factory on a class field trip and learns that scarers harvest human children’s screams to power the monster world. He follows scarer Frank McCay through a door into the human world. Frank is concerned by his recklessness but impressed by his stealth, and gives Mike his Monsters University cap.
Years later, Mike enrolls in MU’s scaring program. Randall “Randy” Boggs is assigned as his roommate. On the first day of class, Abigail Hardscrabble — dean of the scaring program and president of the university — warns that anyone who fails the final exam at the end of the semester leaves the program.
That is the rule the whole movie hangs on. It is clean, it is stated early, and it never gets bent.
Mike then meets Sulley, the son of a famous scarer. Sulley lands a spot in RΩR, Roar Omega Roar, the top fraternity on campus. RΩR rejects Mike for not looking scary enough. Over the next few months, Mike studies and works. Sulley slacks off, leaning on his family name and his natural talent. A rivalry builds between them across the semester.
The Scream Canister Breaks
It comes to a head on exam day, when Mike and Sulley inadvertently break Hardscrabble’s prized scream canister. She tests them both personally and fails them both — Sulley for haste and lack of technical knowledge, Mike for not looking scary enough. Sulley also gets kicked out of RΩR.
The next semester, both of them enter the scream can design program. Sulley blames Mike for what happened.
Mike decides to prove his worth. He enters the annual Scare Games with Oozma Kappa, or OK, a small fraternity of misfits who have also failed the scare program. He negotiates with Hardscrabble: if OK wins, the team and Mike return to the scare program. If they lose, Mike leaves Monsters University.
The cast is deep and mostly wasted. Billy Crystal voices Mike, John Goodman voices Sulley, and Steve Buscemi returns as Randy. Helen Mirren voices Dean Hardscrabble. Peter Sohn is Squishy, Joel Murray is Don, Sean Hayes and Dave Foley are Terri and Terry, Charlie Day is Art, Alfred Molina is Professor Knight, Tyler Labine is the Greek Council VP, and Nathan Fillion is Johnny.
Randy Newman composed the score, returning from the first film. Bob Peterson and John Ratzenberger reprise their roles from Monsters, Inc., and Bonnie Hunt voices a different character.
How the Prequel Got Made
The road to Monsters University was not smooth. Disney, as the rights holder, had plans for a sequel to Monsters, Inc. going back to 2005. After disagreements with Pixar, Disney assigned the project to its Circle 7 Animation unit. An early draft was developed. Disney’s purchase of Pixar in January 2006 killed Circle 7’s version.
A Pixar-made sequel was confirmed in 2010. In 2011, the studio announced the film would instead be a prequel, titled Monsters University.
That history shows in the finished product, and not always for the better. The film carries the weight of a project that changed shape more than once. It is careful. It is well-behaved. It explains things nobody asked it to explain.
The central joke — that the two most famous scarers in the monster world met as college roommates who could not stand each other — is a good one. The film commits to it. But the commitment costs the movie the looseness that made the first film feel effortless.
What the Scare Games Get Right
The Scare Games are the best stretch of the movie. They give the film a structure, a clock, and a reason for a group of characters who do not fit anywhere to be in the same room.
Oozma Kappa is the film’s real find. A fraternity of misfits who failed the scare program is a premise that could have been cruel. Instead, the film treats them as a team. Squishy, Don, Terri, Terry and Art are not punchlines. They are the reason Mike’s gamble has stakes.
The animation is Pixar at its technical peak for 2013. The campus is built out with real care — lecture halls, dorm rooms, fraternity houses, a library, a stadium. The human world appears only briefly, and that restraint is correct. The monster world is the point.
Where the film struggles is in its lead. Mike’s arc is about proving that preparation and study can beat natural talent. Sulley’s arc is about learning that natural talent is not enough. Both are fine lessons. Neither is surprising, and the film does not find a way to make them feel new.
Helen Mirren and Dean Hardscrabble
Helen Mirren is the best thing in Monsters University, and the film does not know what to do with her.
Dean Hardscrabble is a genuinely imposing figure. She is the president of the university and the dean of the scaring program. She sets the rule that drives the plot, she personally fails both leads, and she negotiates with Mike over the Scare Games. She is, by any measure, the film’s antagonist — and she is never wrong.
That is a problem. A prequel has to generate tension even though the audience knows the ending. Monsters University generates its tension through Hardscrabble’s rule, then resolves it without ever testing whether the rule was just. The film is too fond of its own institution to ask.
Mirren’s performance is precise and cold and exactly right. The screenplay just does not give her a scene where the film takes her side seriously enough to argue with it.
Being Good Versus Wanting It
Strip away the campus and the fraternities and the Scare Games, and Monsters University is about the difference between being good at something and wanting it.
Mike wants it. He has wanted it since he was a kid on a field trip. He studies, he drills, he does the work. Sulley is good at it. He has the name, the size, the roar. The film’s argument is that neither one is enough alone — that Mike needs Sulley’s instinct and Sulley needs Mike’s discipline.
That is a real idea, and the film earns it. The problem is that it earns it in the last twenty minutes, after spending most of its runtime on campus comedy that is pleasant but weightless.
The supporting cast gets almost nothing to do. Charlie Day’s Art is a highlight in every scene he is in, which is not many. Alfred Molina’s Professor Knight is a single joke. Nathan Fillion’s Johnny is a fraternity rival with no interior life. The film has a deep bench and plays its starters the whole game.
What Holds Up and What Does Not
Monsters University is a good film that could have been a great one. It is technically superb, it is well-acted, and it has a clear idea about what it wants to say. It just takes too long to say it, and it is too polite to the institution at its center.
The prequel problem is real. Audiences know Mike and Sulley end up at Monsters, Inc. They know they end up friends. The film has to make the journey worth taking anyway. Monsters University makes it worth taking, but only just — and the parts that work best are the parts that have the least to do with the two characters the film is named for.
What works:
- The Scare Games structure, which gives the film a clock
- Oozma Kappa, a team the film treats with respect
- Helen Mirren’s Dean Hardscrabble, the film’s best and most underused asset
- Pixar’s campus design, which builds a world worth looking at
What does not:
- A rivalry that resolves on schedule
- Supporting cast members who get one joke each
- A central lesson the audience saw coming in the first ten minutes
The film premiered at the BFI Southbank in London on June 5, 2013, and opened in the United States on June 21. It was accompanied in theaters by a short film, The Blue Umbrella. It is a prequel that justifies its own existence, which is more than most prequels manage.
It is also a film that plays it safe at every turn. That is not a crime. It is just a waste of a good premise and a great villain.
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