By: debbie lynn elias
While school may be out for the summer for most of you, for everyone’s favorite scarers, the beloved Mike Wazowski and James P. Sullivan, they’re not only heading back to movie theatres after 12 years, but back to school in the much anticipated, long overdue and future Oscar winner, MONSTERS UNIVERSITY! One of the most entertaining, engaging and fun movies of the year, with the voice talents the likes of Billy Crystal, John Goodman, Nathan Fillion, Sean Hayes, Bonnie Hunt, Pixar good luck charm John Ratzenberger, and Dame Helen Mirren plus the magic of Disney and animation of Pixar, how can you miss!
It took long enough (like a child’s entire 12 year formative scholastic education time span) but it was well worth the wait to see Mike and Sully again! And at their youthful best (and worst) no less! Taking us back to the beginning, we meet a very young Mike Wazowski and watch events that lead to his dream of eventually attending MONSTERS UNIVERSITY and his eventual matriculation and fateful meeting with James P. “Sulley” Sullivan. Starting out with tacit life lessons early on, something quite befitting a film set in a University, a place of learning, MU celebrates on the predominant themes of its predecessor, Monsters, Inc. – doors. When one door closes another one opens; not to mention, don’t judge a book by its cover, hold onto your dreams, patience is a virtue, there’s no “I” in “TEAM”, hard works pays off, and everyone and everything has a value and purpose in life. Standout is that these lessons are never “in your face” but shine through in the story thanks to the characters and the situations faced.
Meeting colorful characters along the way, animation and creation of the college life soars. This is how college should always be! And thinking back, as a freshman this is EXACTLY what it felt like for me. Exploding with color, energy, nervousness, excitement, awkwardness, uncertainty, lousy cafeteria food, annoying roommates, the jocks, the nerds, the cheerleaders, the academics, the cool kids and the losers. Thanks to super-saturated color and meticulous visual detail, director Dan Scanlon and screenwriters Robert Baird and Daniel Gerson, super-saturate the story itself, pushing the emotional levels of actions-reactions and inertia for a laugh-filled fun ride that stems from the truth and reality of the situations at hand. I’ve said it before but it bears repeating, the visual textures that are created are mind-boggling and with each film, Pixar artisans just keep raising the bar. So strong is the visual animated design of each skin, each fabric, each piece of brick and mortar, that the visuals create a tactile sensory experience while watching. You KNOW exactly how that jacket feels, how that scaly skin feels, how the soft squishy rubbery octopus tentacles stick and suck and goop. No stone is left unturned and no aspect of college life untouched. There is something for everyone.
One of the highlights of MU is the annual Homecoming Scare Games. A pivotal plot device, animation also takes a unique turn with the creation of a Scare Games obstacle course, complete with glowing anemone stingers that not only has an aural beauty, but is beyond laugh-out-loud funny as everyone gets stung….uh, except a little cheater who coated himself in un-stick-um. Celebratory is that the school library plays an important part in the Games as well. But, shhhhh! Don’t tell anyone!
An ever important part of campus life is the Greek system and MU is no different. Oozma Kappa (OK) is filled with lovable misfits, including Mike and Sulley, while Roar Omega Roar (ROR) are the smartest and most athletic on campus, and self-proclaimed, best of the best. Python Nu Kappa (PNK) harken to the Pink Ladies of “Grease” and can often be found cheering on the hunky, and often unethical, monsters found at Jaws Theta Chi (JOX).
No one can ever top the patter of Billy Crystal and John Goodman and here in their more youthful incarnations, as Mike and Sulley, respectively, their vocal energies are at an all time high. Exuberance and effervescence bubble with every syllable uttered. You feel the energy and excitement of college through their voices. If I saw nothing on screen but only heard these two, my heart would race and my excitement and anticipation would grow. Billy Crystal readily admits that on seeing the first animated renderings of Mike and Sulley for MONSTERS UNIVERSITY, he and Goodman, “just started laughing because oh, sure, make us look younger, given what we look like in the movie. . .[Sulley’s] a little trimmer and a little slimmer. I’ve got this retainer, but there’s a little more youth in [Mike’s] eye. They just carry themselves differently. I don’t know what – it’s just subtle, but it’s there.”
As beloved and lovable now as when Mike and Sulley first hit the big screen, Crystal and Goodman easily tap into the elements of each that makes them so endearing to us. According to Goodman, the fact that Sulley is “a blowhard” resonates not only with him but with the audience. He also aptly notes that what makes Mike and Sulley ” work so well together is that they complete each other, in a way. I think Sulley really, really needs Mike Wazowski. It makes him complete, lets him know – lets the air out of him a little bit. Especially in this film, when they’re not completely formed monsters yet, they learn from each other. They learn how to adapt, how to let go of their pre-conceived notions of themselves and of the world. They’re good for each other.” An attribute of Mike that Crystal connects with is the fact that “Mike is fearless. . . [H]e’s really the favorite character I’ve ever played in anything I’ve done. I’ve really missed doing him until [John] Lasseter, at a party, came to me and said we have the idea. It’s a sequel, but it’s a prequel. They’re in college. And he just walked away, but he left an idea, and I went, ‘Oh! This is gonna be great!’ It was so fun to revisit them at this time in their lives. It was such a brilliant idea to put them in that time period where they’re about to become who they’re gonna become. . .I love this guy to play, and playing it with John is phenomenal because we work together in the studio, and we can act together. We’re not just reading lines; we’re performing them, and we’re playing them, and we feel them. I think that’s why their relationship on screen is really great because it’s a real thing.”
Enrolling in her first Disney•Pixar film is Dame Helen Mirren who is sheer perfection as Dean Hardscrabble. With every icy word, she puts the fear of God into you just sitting in the audience. I can only imagine sitting in her classroom! And of course, every single one of us at some time in our academic lives had a teacher or principal as frightening as Mirren makes Hardscrabble. But then toss in the animation of the character. Vampyric, batlike, but then with ugly clacking “feet” like roaches. Ewwww…… Scary!!!! And just look out for some real fun when Mike and Sully turn the tables on Hardscrabble and scare the beejeebus out of her! When it came to writing the character of Dean Hardscrabble and knowing she would be voiced by Mirren, screenwriters Robert L. Baird and Dan Gerson unabashedly admit the task was “[A] little tricky. I think, in order to be honest, I think we were thinking more about the character that we’ve created than thinking about Helen Mirren because if we thought about Helen Mirren, I think we would just freeze and not write a word. We built that character up. We knew what she was about. We knew what her flaw was. So, we just wrote to that character and then Helen Mirren just added so much. She just “got” the character and knocked it out of the park.”
Some personal voicing faves here are Nathan Fillion as super jock frat boy Johnny Worthington along with Dave Foley and Sean Hayes as the two headed monster and fellow OK fraternity brother, Terry and Terri. (Foley and Hayes prove that sometimes two heads really are better than one.) Talk about pitch perfect voice casting! And again, the character design and visual matches the actor doing the voicing. Fillion is a scream with his silken suaveness, his vocal intonations just dripping with ego while Foley and Hayes are joyous delight! Aubrey Plaza is simply goth-licious as Claire and what would a Disney-Pixar movie be without John Ratzenberger and Bonnie Hunt, the latter of whom is a loving delight as Mike’s elementary school teacher, Karen Graves. (Who didn’t have a teacher like Miss Graves???) According to Hunt (who is turning into the female John Ratzenberger as a Pixar good-luck charm), “I love, love, love [doing] work for Pixar!” And making Ratzenberger look like a Rankin-Bass “Humble Bumble” is simply to die for! Julia Sweeney is a bundle of frenetic fun as Mrs. Squibbles and a delightful mature counter-part to Joel Murray’s resident “mature” student and OK member, Don Carlton. For Murray, voicing the rapid-fire, slightly nervous but always upbeat former salesman, Don, MONSTERS UNIVERSITY is like a dream come true. Finding it “pretty funny to see Don on screen for the first time”, Murray gratefully notes, “To get to something of this level that you can’t possibly audition for – they just call you up and say, ‘We want you to do this’ – it’s like a mobster calling you up and saying ‘We want this out of you. Now!’. There’s no saying “no” to [Pixar] because this is the greatest experience ever.”
Another new character on campus this term is Art, a hippiesque free-spirited purple guy, voiced by Charlie Day. One of the favorites for screenwriters, Daniel Gerson and Robert L. Baird, Gerson describes Art as a “kind of amalgam.” Expounding, Baird quickly notes, “There’s one person on every college campus that makes you wonder – ‘How did he get here? Why is he still here?’ The guy’s so weird but we love him and we wanted to make sure we had that kind of character in the movie.”
Of course, a new character who may just become the new hit of MONSTERS UNIVERSITY is the school mascot, Archie the Scare Pig.
So appreciated is that Scanlon and company not only develop the relationship of Mike and Sulley and set them on their path to Monsters, Inc., but then follow-through with epilogue locker room snapshots of their meteoric and memorable rise through the ranks at Monsters, Inc., completing the cycle that takes them right up to the original 2001 film. No chapter is left unwritten. According to John Goodman, with MONSTERS UNIVERSITY, “[T]he thrill is still there because they’re such wonderful storytellers, great writers, and everything is reality-based and grounded, so you can believe in it, and it makes it fun.”
According to Baird, “We do always start with the idea. . .We did have to go into the ‘Way Back Machine’ and sort of spent a lot of time telling each other stories and remembering. And you know what? It wasn’t that hard, to tell you the truth. Because some of those memories, some of those moments, were really formative for us and so the stories just came. We tried to sneak in the feeling of college more than the ‘crossing the line craziness’ of college.”
Most challenging for Baird, Gerson and co-writer/director Dan Scanlon was “Confounding people’s expectations; that they know where these guys are gonna end up, so how do we lead people down a path where we can stop the movie at any point and say ‘What the heck is gonna happen? How are they possibly going to resolve this?’ At a certain point, we had Sulley as the protagonist, but it didn’t quite play because people know he’s going to be a big star. When we switched it to Mike, suddenly the whole world opened up and it became a lot easier of a story to tell. So that was the biggest thing. Just making sure that people are along for the ride and not just saying ‘Okay. We know. Let’s wait for the movie to finish so we can get on to something else.’” Believe me when I say that not only will you never think that watching MONSTERS UNIVERSITY, but by film’s end, you’ll want to stay in school for another term!
Joyous, inventive, creative, imagination and animated to perfection, MONSTERS UNIVERSITY soars. And uh, let’s say OK to the OK frat! A little side note for you – Don’t think it escaped my notice that the first monster scarers we meet on Mike’s elementary school trip are “J” and “K” – and although a non-Disney film, a loving nod to Men in Black! And for all you Pixarphiles out there, be on the lookout for many trademark “Easter Eggs” throughout the film, not to mention a bonus AFTER the credits!
Every element of the film has a purpose. Every character, every costume, every frat house antic, every piece of glitter and goo, every word. The senses are inundated – just like going away to college or leaving home to venture out into the great big world.
Straight “A’s” across the board, it’s time to matriculate in MONSTERS UNIVERSITY! This is one school I won’t mind going back to! MONSTERS U, oh we love you!
Directed by Dan Scanlon
Written by Dan Scanlon, Daniel Gerson, Robert L. Baird
Cast: Billy Crystal, John Goodman, Helen Mirren, Steve Buscemi, Nathan Fillion, Dave Foley, Sean Hayes, Joel Murray, Charlie Day, Tyler Labine, Bonnie Hunt, John Ratzenberger
