MONSTERS UNIVERSITY

year: 2013 voices: Billy Crystal, John Goodman, Helen Mirren, Steve Buscemi rating: *

Chalk this up as a completely worthless, meaningless, pointless prequel to the hit children’s movie MONSTERS INC that, with a creative plot and terrific voice-overs, was just as entertaining for adults... But why waste your chalk on such pitiful nonsense? (Added to that, the audience must first sit through a tedious short film dealing with two lustful umbrellas!) Here we follow the exploits of underdog monsters Mike and Sully; Mike, from a very young age, always looked at those nightmare-educing beasts in the grandiose fashion a human child views a professional athlete or fireman. During a field trip his excitement grows for these intrepid scaremongers… Fully intent on attending Monster’s University, as a teen he finally gets his wish.

The place itself is giant and magical, and looks vividly awesome in 3D. Too bad, once inside, there are only rushed montage sequences of every college movie cliché, mostly taken from REVENGE OF THE NERDS... Mike, resembling a Mad Ball with legs and relying on books instead of gut instinct, and Sully, the big furry lovable beast with a roar like a thousand enraged lions, wind up part of a loser fraternity and compete in "Scare Games" to become recognized. There’s also a dash of HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE with a medieval style multilevel competition that, held before a crowd of screaming students, includes “sports” that a live audience would have difficulty keeping up with.

The main problem is there's hardly any human children on board, so what’s the point of monsters trying to – or in this case, learning to – scare the wits out of them? The monsters themselves rate each other on how frightening they are; imagine only uptight women judging a bikini contest! The team of geeks banded with Mike and Sully are downright annoying, and there’s simply no plot nor any urgency for the team to accomplish their ultimate goal. If they win they’re well thought of… Big whoop! Having viewed this in a theater replete with children, all poised and ready to laugh their little heads off, it was apparent that, halfway through, even the crickets didn’t know how to react during this exercise in futility.