Review of the film

Disney’s Monsters Inc. prequel, Monster’s University, is directed by Dan Scanlon and is a Pixar Animations Studios film.

In the film, Mike Wazowski, who is a small green one-eyed monster, follows his dream of becoming a professional scarer at Monsters Inc. He begins the term at Monster’s University where he meets a tall, blue and pink hairy monster called James Sullivan, (Sully).

At first, Sully and Mike don’t get on. Sully is arrogant and selfish and Mike is short-tempered and jealous of the attention on Sully. Both are very competitive and clash in class. 

After a mishap at the end of term exam both students are expelled from the scare programme by Dean Hardscrabble. 

The good news is that they have a chance of redemption by competing together to win the scare games and to win their places back on the scare programme. The bad news is they are in a team with a group of fuzzy, fun-loving and timid monsters; and if they don’t win, they will be permanently expelled from the university. 

The film is funny right from the starting scene. There is dry humour, “Don’t call me Karen.” 

There is lots of background humour. A funny moment I recall is the scene when mum puts the washing machine on during the fraternity initiation. 

I laughed at the visual humour, for example, when the slug tried not to be late for the first day of school.

The humour was on a more intellectual level too, like the scene when the captain of the improvisation team messed up his lines.

The casting is very clever, Helen Mirren, who voices the character of Dean Hardscrabble, brings the character alive with a hard, emotionless performance. 

Monster’s University is an interesting, fast-paced movie full of exciting moments and competitive elements that leave you on the edge of your seat. The scare games events are cleverly spaced in the movie to bring lots of highlights. My favourite event was the final simulation event, where monsters try to produce the biggest screams from the mechanized child dummies.

The relationship between Mike and Sully has lots of ups and downs. Their journey ultimately ends in friendship that leads cleverly into the Monsters Inc. plot-line. 

All things considered, at no point in the movie did it fall short of expectation. 

I recommend this film to families with children. Ideally, this film is best viewed on the big screen to get the full effect of the excellent animations. I would give this movie 9.5 out of 10.