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Monsters University makes the grade for Pixar

Success can be a movie studio’s own worst enemy. The quality of the majority of Pixar’s films have been such that any deviation from that norm is considered to be disappointing, even if the substandard film outshines most other animated offerings.

After delivering a great finale to the Toy Story trilogy, Pixar is in a bit of slump after the horrendous Cars 2 and the so-so Brave. To try to break out, Pixar is going back to the well of familiar characters with Monsters University, marking the first prequel in its history.

Aside from maybe The Incredibles, it’s hard to think of another Pixar film that better deserved the prequel treatment than Monsters, Inc. The opportunity to see how Mike (Billy Crystal) and Sully (John Goodman) met and acted in college is darn near irresistible.

Monsters University doesn’t reach the heights of Pixar’s classics, but it’s a vast improvement over its previous two offerings.

The set-up is great too. Mike dreams his entire life — footage of him as a kid is priceless — of going to Monsters University and becoming a full-fledged scarer. Once he gets there, though, he finds out that desire and ability may not exactly be the same thing, especially when there are truly scary monsters like Sully in his way.

The filmmakers do a lot of things right, including playing just enough on character nostalgia so as to make things familiar, but not so much that they’re just repeating themselves. There are also a number of clever twists on the college experience from the monster perspective, including dorm life, fraternities and sports.

On the down side, though, the main thrust of the film is a timeworn plot that’s all the less fresh for how much it’s been used lately. Mike and Sully are forced to team up with a fraternity filled with outcasts and misfits in order to prove their worth. Each of the members has their individual charms, but that doesn’t hide the rote nature of their presence.

Still, there’s just something special about being back in the world of scaring, and seeing how the combative nature of Mike and Sully’s friendship evolves never fails to entertain. That’s mostly thanks to the voice talents of Crystal and Goodman, who both know their way around a good joke.

New additions such as Helen Mirren as Dean Hardscrabble, Sean Hayes and Dave Foley as twins sharing the same body, and Nathan Fillion as the head of a rival fraternity keep the movie popping. And callbacks to characters like Randy (Steve Buscemi), Roz (Bob Peterson) and Henry J. Waternoose are executed flawlessly.

Monsters University doesn’t reach the heights of Pixar’s classics, but it’s a vast improvement over its previous two offerings. And fans of original storytelling will be glad to know that Pixar’s next two films – The Good Dinosaur and Inside Out – are all new.

Mike Wazowski is all smiles when he first gets to Monsters University.

Monsters University

Photo courtesy of Disney Pixar

Mike Wazowski is all smiles when he first gets to Monsters University.

Movie Review

Much-anticipated film sequel Gladiator II tells a very familiar story

Paul Mescal in Gladiator II

Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures

Paul Mescal in Gladiator II.

There are some films for which making a sequel is natural, and others where a follow-up is wholly unnecessary. Gladiator, which made both tons of money and was named Best Picture at the Oscars, told an impactful stand-alone story that ended with the protagonist dead and no real loose ends. And yet because there’s always more money to be made, here we are 24 years later with Gladiator II.

The lead character this time around is Lucius (Paul Mescal), a general in a North African army who becomes a prisoner of war when the Roman army led by Marcus Acacius (Pedro Pascal) bests him and his troops in battle. Taken back to Rome, he is put in the pool of captured men forced to fight at the Colosseum for the amusement of twin emperors Geta (Joseph Quinn) and Caracella (Fred Hechinger).

Lucius is controlled by Macrinus (Denzel Washington), an ambitious schemer who bets liberally on his prized fighter and always has an eye to move up in the world. Meanwhile, Lucilla (Connie Nielsen), the sister of Emperor Commodus from the first film, is now married to Marcus Acacius and has a unique connection with Lucius that is fairly obvious from the get-go.

Directed once again by Ridley Scott and written by David Scarpa, the film commits a number of sins throughout its 150-minute running time, the most blatant of which is that, aside from a few embellishments, it essentially tells the same story as the first film. Lucius, like Maximus, is a deposed military leader who’s out for revenge on the person who killed his family. Instead of one obnoxious emperor, there are now two. And the only way for Lucius to earn his freedom is to fight his way out.

Stories told in the same world can echo each other and, if done well, overcome those similarities. But Gladiator II is shockingly boring for a purported sword-and-sandals epic. Scott and his team try to introduce new elements to the fights, like a gladiator riding a rhinoceros or a ship battle inside the Colosseum (with sharks!), but most of the sequences are inert with no propulsion to them.

The action fails because none of the relationships in the film amount to much. There are stand-out characters like Macrinus and the twin emperors, but instead of creating antipathy or strong feelings of triumph or defeat, the story just kind of happens without any sense of excitement or importance. Much of that issue lies at the feet of Lucius, who simply doesn’t inspire in the same way that Russell Crowe’s Maximus did.

Mescal is a fine actor who’s done good work in more intimate roles, but he’s not up to the task of being an action star, at least not in this film. Any bombast he shows with the character feels forced, and the story doesn’t give him enough opportunities to counteract that lack. Washington, however, fills up the screen with his charisma, and it’s during his scenes that the film comes closest to being rousing. Quinn and Hechinger are a lot of fun as the twin emperors, but in the end they feel like retreads of Joaquin Phoenix from the original.

Any sequel should have a purpose that sets it apart from what came before, but Scott, Scarpa, and the rest of their team fail in that respect in Gladiator II. It’s a mostly lifeless film that delivers scenes that would be exciting if they had any kind of good story to back them up.

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Gladiator II opens in theaters on November 22.

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