MOVIE Review: Monsters University

"Mike, You're not scary. Not even a little bit; but you are fearless." --Sulley

It's not common that I review movies.  A lot of this is because I don't see new movies all that often.  However, I did see this movie in June, with Sarah.  Yes, I know that that was a long time ago.  And yet, I am reviewing it now.

Monsters University is a prequel to Monsters, Inc., that follows how Sully and Mike met and their lives at MU.  As two college freshmen, both Scare Majors, they are diametrically opposed to one another.  Sully is kind of there for the fun, goes to class and scrapes by.  But hey, he's a talented scarer, and his family is knowing for scaring.  He doesn't worry about it.  Mike, on the other hand, is passionate about scaring and makes sure that he will be the top of the class.  He studies and studies, because he wants nothing more than to be a scarer.  They are, however, forced to work together after the head of the scare department puts them on her doghouse list.

One thing that I really like about Pixar movies is that, quite often, they teach lessons that need to be taught, but aren't always the most popular things to teach.  Monsters University definitely does that.  Sometimes, you can't have what you want, no matter how much you want it.  It's a tough lesson.  I had a roommate that watched America's Next Top Model like it was good or something, and on Saturdays, there was this channel on TV that would play entire reran seasons of the show so that it went for about 12 hours straight.  And since I had another roommate (the actually in my room roommate) who slept until noon or later on weekends, I would be out in the living room, trying to achieve things until my other roommate woke up.  This was actually the most difficult thing about roommates--our sleep schedules usually didn't jive.  But that's another day, another post.  Anyways, the reason I bring this up is that there was this pervading belief amongst these "models" that the competition was about who wanted it the most, not who was the most talented as a model.  They would always say, "I want this so bad, there's no way I can't win."  And then someone would make it to the next round and the other girls would say, "She doesn't even really want to be here."  Or, "Most of us have poured our lives into this.  It's not fair that she's still here, and she's only been modeling for a year."  I guess she is more talented in her year than you are with your lifetime.  You can want something, but sometimes you don't have the talent.  

No one could say that Mike didn't want to be a scarer.  He worked his butt off, but he still wasn't a successful scarer.  It was admirable that he tried, but I think the movie did a good job of teaching that sometimes you can't have what you want, no matter how hard you try.  It also did a good job of teaching that dreams have many avenues, and sometimes what you thought you wanted and how you thought it would happen wasn't the way it worked out.  Sometimes for the better.

I would actually give this movie 5 stars.