Monsters University - Pixar Flix Aren't Just for Kids

Pixar is magic.  Over and over again they come up with characters and stories that are fun for audiences of hugely varying ages.  The worlds they create are beautiful and imaginative.  Their characters are original and relatable.  Out of fourteen films, there has only been one dud (Cars 2).  A batting average of 0.929 isn’t too shabby!  In my opinion, Pixar is the standard when it comes to animated movies.

I think that part of the appeal is that they are accessible and enjoyable to a wide variety of audiences.  They are bright, colorful, fun, and funny to little kids.  They are cool enough for teenagers.  And they’re clever enough to keep adults interested and entertained.  They truly are family movies.

Monsters University was no different.

Here’s why this movie appealed to me as a more “mature” viewer:

1.       It gave me credit for having seen Monsters, Inc.  It rewarded me with plenty of in-jokes that would only be truly appreciated by someone who was familiar with the first movie.  Yet it was still inviting to people for whom Monsters U was their first foray into the Monster’s world.  There was enough reminder of (or introduction to) the concept of the Monsters without being too much.

2.       It took character stereotypes and made them funny.  This isn’t too much of a spoiler (I hope), since the title of the movies is “Monsters University”, but the setting is largely on a college campus, with all that entails: professors, various types of students, roommates, and fraternities and sororities.  The concept of the jock, the frat boy, the nerd, etc. aren’t new or original, but they were so well done in this movie that they worked!  And there were some other characters that weren’t quite as typical, too, to balance it out.

3.       The attention to detail and the set and character designs were gorgeous!  As I’ve said before, part of the pleasure of watching animated movies for me is the look of the film.  CGI movies have come a long way since Toy Story was released in 1995.  Pixar has always been on the forefront of the industry in terms of animation quality.  Watching Monsters, Inc. on an HD TV last night, I saw that the characters and the sets didn’t mesh as well as they did on older, less advanced screens.  That wasn’t the case with Monsters U.  From the lighting to the backgrounds, the textures and the colors, this was eye candy from start to finish.

4.       One of my pet peeves with a lot of “kids” movies is that the message of the story is heavy handed, immature, or even faddish.  With the exception of WALL-E’s overt environmentalist slant, Pixar has avoided that.  That trend continued in Monsters U.  The themes were relatable and well integrated with the story.

There were other things that I really liked about the movie, but some fall into the realm of spoilers, which, despite the title of this blog, I’m trying to avoid.  Hopefully it’s already understood that this is a prequel, and so it takes place before Monsters, Inc.  Related to that, it was fun to see the development of the relationship between Mike and Sully, the two main characters.  I was also pleased with the subtle changes to their appearances to make them look younger.  The voice acting was great!  The cast did an amazing job.  Helen Mirren brought her character to life in a way that, even though the character is an antagonist, made her one of my favorites.

Monsters University was well worth the price of admission.  It is worthy of the Pixar label.  And it is another of summer 2013’s great sequels.

Despicable Me 2 - Something's Missing

This summer (and probably most summers to come) has been and will continue to be full of sequels:  Iron Man 3, Star Trek: Into Darkness, Monsters University, Red 2, The Wolverine, and Despicable Me 2 are all movies that I’ve seen or will be seeing this summer that involve returning characters and universes.  I’ve already written about Iron Man 3 and Star Trek: Into Darkness, both of which were really good sequels (yes, time and distance have made me fonder of IM3.)  I haven’t written about it yet, but I also thought that Monsters University was done very well.

That brings me to Despicable Me 2 (hereafter referred to as “DM2”).  Over all, I thought it was a cute story with a decent (not too overt) message.  The character designs were fun to look at.  The voice acting was well done.  The minions were hilarious!  But some of the elements that I enjoyed about the first movie were missing from this one.

First off, there was a distinct lack of inventing and building in DM2.  Gru still had gadgets, but they didn’t seem very original, and anything that was new seemed rather basic.

Second, he wasn’t really competing with anyone.  This is probably a major reason for the dearth of new machines and plots on Gru’s part.

Third, while the girls definitely had a role in this movie, they didn’t seem like they were as big a part of it as they were in the first one.

DM2 was definitely a sequel in that it didn’t spend much time re-introducing characters.  It was a stand-alone story, not depending on the first movie for anything except the characters themselves.  In that regard, I would suggest watching (or re-watching) the first movie before going to see DM2.  On the other hand, I’d only seen Despicable Me once, but I had no trouble stepping back into the world of Gru and company.

For me, a lot of what makes an animated movie enjoyable is the look of it.  I’m not all that fond of the designs in DreamWorks movies because all of the characters look the same to me.  Pixar does it right, though, with a seemingly endless variety of shapes, sizes, colors, and textures.  DM and DM2 were done by a company called Illumination Entertainment (part of Universal Studios), and they have taken a page from Pixar’s book.  I am especially impressed with the minions.  I mean, really, how many ways can you make yellow cylinders with arms, legs, eyes, a few hairs each, and mouths different?  And they all dress the same (for the most part), too!  And yet, if you pay attention, each minion is unique.  That’s impressive to me.

So while I didn’t enjoy DM2 quite as much as the original, it was still worth a watch.

(I’m starting to wonder if the length of my reviews reflects how strongly I feel about a movie…)