Monsters University

Monsters Club Ltd.

Grade: B +

Director: Dan Scanlon

Starring the voices of: Billy Crystal, John Goodman, Helen Mirren and Steve Buscemi

MPAA Rating: G

Running Time: 1 hr. 50 min.

There’s an urge to lump Monsters University, Pixar Animation’s first prequel, in with the studio’s last stab at a sequel. But whereas Cars 2 was a lackluster, uncreative money grab, Monsters University is, well, a money grab. But it also exhumes the studio’s signature wit and charm, mothballed since 2010’s Toy Story 3.

Speaking of which, Monsters University fits purposely into the timeline of Pixar’s maturing target audience that began with youngsters who discovered the hidden world of their playthings in 1995 with Toy Story. They’re also the teenagers who, 15 years later, left behind those old childhood playthings en route to college in Toy Story 3.

Three years later, that college life is the setting for Monsters University, a prequel to 2001’s Monsters, Inc., where kids saw an imaginary world behind the bedtime fears. Billy Crystal and John Goodman reprise their roles as the younger incarnations of Mike Wazowski  and James “Sulley” Sullivan, respectively. The uni-eyed Mike enrolls in the titular college hoping to major in scaring and eventually land a job at Monsters, Inc., “the big leagues.” Sulley, on the other hand, is a lunkheaded child of privilege who gets by on his family name and one go-to fright face. The hard-charging but scareless Mike resents the lazy Sulley, while Sulley dislikes know-it-all Mike.

Mishaps eventually thrust the two together as members of Oozma Kappa fraternity (“We’re OK!”), a melange of misfits who are distinct underdogs in the annual Scare Games. Both the games and scaring program are overseen by strict Dean Hardscrabble (Helen Mirren), a Hogwarts-esque headmistress who holds the keys to Mike and Sulley’s futures at MU.

The plot is as old as Revenge of the Nerds and as recent as The House Bunny and Pitch Perfect. But in the hands of Pixar, director Dan Scanlon and a terrific cast led by Crystal and Goodman (both with voices born for animation), the threadbare story reaches humorous and enjoyable heights. The film doesn’t approach the level of Pixar’s elite entries—the Toy Story series, The Incredibles, Up, WALL-E, Ratatouille, and even Finding Nemo. But it exudes a sure-handed, polished professionalism that is both entertaining for kids and reassuring for adults. The film also reclaims some of the luster Pixar lost in the wake of Cars 2 and even the ambitious but uneven Brave. Still, the fact that Monsters University is the best animated film this year reveals more about the state of animated filmmaking than the merits of the movie.

Youth in Revolt

Tyler Durden says to start lifting weights

Grade: B

Starring: Michael Cera, Portia Doubleday, Jean Smart, Zach Galifianakis, Erik Knudsen, Steve Buscemi, Adhir Kalyan, Fred Willard, Ray Liotta, and Justin Long

MPAA Rating: R

Running Time: 1 hour, 30 minutes

It’s a familiar plotline for anyone who has watched movies since the 1980s: sexually frustrated teen seeks to lose his virginity, falls head-over-heels for a beautiful girl, and then undergoes a series of wacky exploits on his way to accomplishing his goal.

That director Miguel Areta (The Good Girl; Chuck & Buck) embraces such a shopworn subgenre in adapting C.D. Payne’s farcical coming-of-age novel Youth in Revolt is itself an ironic commentary on the landscape of cinematic comedies. Still, this is no Porky’s or slice of American Pie. Youth in Revolt owes more to Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Little Darlings, and even Jean-Luc Godard, and while it may not be in the same class as that esteemed company, it is heady, hilarious fare that is already the surprise film of the young year.

Michael Cera has seemingly played the character of precocious, neurotic teenager Nick Twisp since his Arrested Development days. The 16-year-old Nick is a Holden Caulfield with a penchant for Sinatra and autoeroticism who longs to both shed his virginity and sever ties with his divorced parents (Jean Smart and Steve Buscemi). Mom cycles through loser boyfriends while Dad is shacked up with a bikini-clad blonde closer to Nick’s age.

When Mom’s latest lout (Zach Galifianakis) lands in hot-water, they and Nick take refuge at Restless Axles, a Christian trailer park in northern California. Enter Sheeni Saunders (newcomer Portia Doubleday), an erudite Lolita with an abiding love for all things French, including her pinup of Jean-Paul Belmondo. She and Nick wax whip-smart and commence a PG-rated summer fling, but his coitus interruptus proves to be Sheeni’s handsome, French-speaking, piano-playing, Futurist percussive poetry-spouting boyfriend, Trent (Jonathan Bradford Wright).

When Nick returns home and Sheeni leaves to attend a French boarding school in Santa Cruz, his solution on how they might reunite revolves around mischief created by François (also played by Cera), a pencil-mustachioed, Gitanes-smoking figment of Nick’s imagination. The brazen François – part Jeff Spicoli, part Belmondo in Godard’s Pierrot le Fou – embodies Nick’s id and represents the sort of man he believes girls prefer. Spurred on by his inner Tyler Durden, Nick conflagrates his hometown of Berkley and sabotages Sheeni’s schooling.

Payne’s sharp wit translates well to the screen in the hands of writer Gustin Nash, whose coming-of-age Charlie Bartlett plowed similar, albeit less fertile ground. There are occasions late in Youth in Revolt when its comic elements almost explode into brilliant, full-blown surrealism, especially a couple of shroom-tripping sequences: Nick incorporates sex-manual illustrations into the first, while the other finds Sheeni’s otherwise bible-thumping dad (M. Emmet Walsh) smearing mashed potatoes all over his face over Thanksgiving dinner.

However, virtually all the film’s characters are zany to the point of derangement. Without a reliable straight/sane counterpoint, the narrative nearly implodes into inanity – casualties include underwritten supporting turns from Ray Liotta and Justin Long, who plays Sheeni’s half-baked brother. These spells are saved by Erik Knudsen as Nick’s childhood friend Lefty, Adhir Kalyan – who mirrors Cera’s deadpan wit – as Nick’s new high school pal Vijay, and Fred Willard as an aging hippie. But, ultimately this is Cera’s show, and he exhibits range while carrying the film on his lanky back.

Youth in Revolt congeals romance, sex, and infatuation into one dysfunctional, indispensable confection. Circumstance forces Nick to disguise himself in drag before he can finally enter Sheeni’s boudoir. In the end, love begets masculinity, not the other way around.

Neil Morris

*Originally published at www.indyweek.com