Monsters University Movie Review

admin — Sat, 28 Jun 2014 00:50:05 +0000

Monsters, Inc. was Pixar’s third animated feature and remains one of the jewels in their crown. Like Toy Story before it, it took a simple idea (in this case, monsters under the bed) and showed us the previously unseen point of view of the monsters doing the scaring. And it turns out that they’re not that scary after all and they’re merely doing their jobs: collecting children’s screams and harvesting the energy therein to power their city. Indeed, they’re actually scared of us. It was a neat idea and a thoroughly unique one that debunked the scary-monster-under-the-bed myth.

So it is that Monsters University arrives with much anticipation. The sequel has some mighty shoes to fill and sadly it falls some way short as it is surprisingly bereft of new ideas. What is presented here is simply a ‘further adventures of Mike and Sully’ film that could easily have gone straight to DVD.

The film channels the frat movies of the eighties. While that seems like such a great idea in theory, the potential remains largely unrealised here. Taking most of its cues from Revenge of the Nerds, we see Mike and Sully teaming up with the university geek fraternity to win the day against all odds. What could have been an excellent dual level adult/child animated comedy (a genre pioneered by Pixar) disappointingly remains a resolute kids’ flick.

This is Pixar sleepwalking. Monsters University is the Cars 2 of Pixar’s Monster franchise; it’s an entertaining children’s movie, but it could have been (and should have been) so much more.

Stuart Jamieson
www.monstersuniversity.com

Toy Story 1 & 2 (in 3D) Movie Review

admin — Sat, 28 Jun 2014 00:44:12 +0000

I remember a cartoon from the old National Lampoon Magazine where a guy is being asked by an interviewer to comment on the film he’s just seen. He says something to the effect that the passage of individual frames through the projector at 24 per second created an amazing illusion of movement!

I remember feeling a little like this the first time I saw Toy Story: the amazement that somehow a computer had created these textured colourful creatures that emoted and cavorted through such a beautifully detailed world. It’s worth remembering that the first film came out nearly 15 years ago, when the top of the line Power Macintosh boasted a head spinning 120Mhz CPU and 16 Mib of RAM! (Of course Pixar used racks of Sun Sparkstations to actually render the movies, but you get my point.)

And now we have both films back on the big screen, converted to 3D after close to a year of digital processing. And was it worth the effort? Yes it was. The images are sharp, crisp and it does appear as if Pixar had some idea, even back then, that these movies would one day be presented this way. The small size of the toys compared to the world around them leads to some dizzying imagery. There are plenty of satisfying throwing and falling and flying scenes — all the tropes of effective 3D.

I have two sons who have watched these movies many, many times on DVD. I know both Toy Stories very, very well. And what struck me watching them again was the other dimension these films have always had: that of depth of character. Both films have genuine wit and pathos, and plots that move at just the right pace to fully satisfying conclusions. The 3D is a great addition, but it is only the icing on an already very tasty cake.

Stas Wiatrowski
www.disney.go.com/ToyStory

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Monsters University Movie Review

Toy Story 1 & 2 (in 3D) Movie Review