A Strictly Poison Ivy League School

Zandar's Summer Movie Series continues with a reminder that great teams in animated history are forged by adversity, tempered by will, and then apparently quenched in the water barrel of slapstick physical comedy.



Mike Wazowski (Billy Crystal) and James P. Sullivan (John Goodman) weren't always the beasts of the Monsters, Inc. Scare Floor, and in fact they started out in this prequel to the 2001 Pixar hit as a couple of college freshmen newly accepted as scaring majors to prestigious Monsters University.  It's been Mike's dream since a childhood field trip to MI, and Sully's destiny as he's a legacy admission and trading on the Sullivan family name.

But as the Pixar G-rated equivalent of a couple of dipstick dudebros, Sully's constant coasting and Mike's nerdy know-it-all act quickly results in a bitter rivalry that get the both of them tossed out of the MU Scaring School by Dean Abigail Hardscrabble (the delightfully perfect Helen Mirren) and headed for ignominious defeat...until fate gives them a second chance at the program by proving they can work together and win the MU Greek Scare Games.  All they have to do is beat the the rest of the fraternities and sororities, including the top dogs on campus, Roar Omega Roar and team captain Johnny Worthington (Nathan Filion, hamming it up brilliantly), with arguably the lamest movie fraternity in history:  the brothers of Oozma Kappa.

What follows is a predictable but charming tale for the kids while remaining smart enough to engage the parents as well.  It's still a good time and worth several laughs, and as far as Pixar second stanzas go a much better film that Cars 2 (not a high bar) but comes out close enough to Toy Story 2 to make the grade (not that anything's going to touch Toy Story 3 for a while.)

All in all a good time for everyone, with some solid lessons on teamwork and a few truly laugh-out-loud moments.