Prequel offers a surprising plug for higher education, writes Christine Powley.
Director: Don Scanlon
Cast: Billy Crystal, John Goodman, Steve Buscemi, Helen Mirren, Peter Sohn, Joel Murray, Sean Hayes, Dave Foley, Alfred Molina
Rating: (G)
3 stars (out of 5)
Hands up all of you who saw Monsters Inc and felt a burning desire to find out how monsters Mike Wazowski (Billy Crystal) and James P. Sullivan (John Goodman) first met.
I cannot say it's been niggling at me for all these years, but Pixar has kindly supplied an answer to the not-so burning question.
Monsters University (Hoyts and Rialto) is a prequel which delivers the surprising information that monsters are great respecters of higher education.
All monsters dream of becoming scarers (monsters who harvest the screams of human children to power their cities, cars etc) and scaring children is not what comes naturally - they have to go to university to learn the optimal technique.
As a big green eyeball, Mike is not a natural when it comes to scaring, but what he lacks in natural ability he plans to make up for in dedicated study.
Sullivan, on the other hand, looks the part, but is more interested in the social side of going to university.
For differing reasons, they both land in trouble with the dean (voiced by Helen Mirren) and have to prove to her that they have what it takes to become top scarers.
Best thing: Mike is rather an endearing little green-eye monster.
Worst thing: It is mildly amusing but there is not a lot of belly laughing going on.
See it with: Anyone who watched Monsters Inc a million times as a child and probably wants to know how Mike and Sullivan became BFFs.
