Monsters University

Saw Monsters University (thanks, Chris!) It was a delightful Pixar film. It opens with little Mike Wazowski dreaming of being a scarer, harvesting the screams of children. This is a difficult place to start because we are made to want him so much to succeed, but know from Monsters Inc that he will fail. I wondered with some trepidation how Pixar was going to gently show Mike's dreams being crushed. It turns out that this film is kind of bleak. It positions itself as a war between talent and smarts, with Mike representing the book-smart but talentless and a fauxhawk-sporting Sully representing the glib talent, coasting by on family fame.

Typical of Pixar, the film has no magic bullets. The machina produces no deus, there is no last-minute reprieve. That Mike has to face the fact that his dream is impossible is hard, doubly so for a kinda-kid's film. It's sad that it's message is really more appropriate for actual college kids. There is a scene where a beloved keepsake representing his dream gets destroyed in an act of Mike surpassing himself. For me, it didn't hit as much at it should have, but the message is clear. Mike's dream is a delusion which he is stronger for abandoning. Like Up before it, the worth of dreams and sentiment is questioned. Like in The Incredibles, the nature of talent is examined.

Also like the Increadibles, there's some frustrating discussion to be had about this film. In one worrying scene, Mike takes a gang of dispirited would-be scare-ers to see the professional scare-ers at work. He points out that there's no commonalities, that every monster has their niche. Moments later, they are running from the cops (they are trespassing) and Sully, mascot of raw talent, is weighed down, literally carrying the weight of these lesser, loser monsters. I think we're supposed to see Sully's heart is softening, but are they not holding him back? I realize I'm kind of being a jerk here, but the fact remains that this film is subtle and nuanced enough that it's easy to be a jerk about it.

Anyway, most of the film is taken up with a disgraced Mike and Sully battling in a frat tournament against the oh-so-hatefully-smug Douchebag frat. It's fun and exciting, though they never leave the theme of talent vs brains far behind. I loved the headmistress, the kind of unrealistic ridiculousness of monster-college life (human-college life involves a lot more un-cinematic uncertainty and fear, in my experience) and the incredible lameness of the loser-monsters. There are moments where this film falls a little flat and we get a little too preoccupied with that tournament which the film ultimately argues is irrelevant anyway, but there are funny moments and heart-warming moments and anyway the ideas are fascinating and very fresh for a kid's movie. I think we're living in a kind of golden age for kid's entertainment.