Movie Review: Monsters University

I had the rare opportunity to go to the movies on a Monday night.  The hope was that after over a month, there would be less annoying children in the theatre.  There were less than 10, but those 10 made their presence known.  Would it kill AMC to have a screening of kids movies that adults might like without kids in attendance?  I mean, I have to work too, you know?  I’m excited you brought your kids after work, but if little Johnny can’t shut it, he should go outside.  This isn’t an interactive movie…I digress.

Monsters University was a prequel to the rather popular Monsters Inc. that came out several years ago.  In this movie, we meet Mike Wazowski and James P. Sullivan as college students.  Mike is still small and wears a retainer, convinced he can be a fantastic scarer.  Sully is a lanky college kid that is trying to ride the coattails of his father and the rest of his family without doing much work.  Both are trying to do well on their exam in their first scarying class when an accident happens.  This forces them to work together and they do so with mixed results.

The story is very engaging and at times it makes you miss your college days or reminisce about how things were at your school.  The antics are spot on and can be over the top, but only to a degree.  What struck me was the ending.  If you haven’t seen it, you may want to stop reading here, because I’d like to discuss it, so to speak.

In most movies everything is tied up in neat little bows.  When Mike and Sully don’t stay in school, getting expelled, there is no tidy, perfect ending, not really.  Instead there is a montage of images of them working their way to what we see in the first movie.  To me, the lesson that Pixar hits squarely is that while you may have the best laid plans, if they don’t go your way, there are other ways.  I thought that message was well worth watching and turned the movie from regular Disney movie into something more.  It has been almost a month since this movie came out and while there are annoying kids still seeing it, it’s still worth seeing and I’ll probably grab it on DVD as well.