Monsters University (Film) - Review

Pixar was once known as a group of film-makers with a perfect track-record. Now, with movies like Brave that didn't give people the oomph they expected, and an influx of sequels that are making people doubt the studio's creativity as of late, that reputation has dwindled. Monsters University is Pixar's latest film, and it pains me to say, as a big fan of Pixar, that this movie is very bad. There are some good laughs and the movie looks nice, but it's aimless and sometimes even mean. 

Monsters University is a prequel to Monsters Inc., following Mike and Sully as college students. In Monsters Inc., it's established early on that these two are amongst the best in their profession, and this movie aims to tell the story of how they got to that point. And it really doesn't tell that story at all! The story of how they actually get good at their profession is told through a contentless time-lapse at the end of the film, after the climax. What actually makes up the bulk of this movie is a meandering lot of comedy, visual effects and underdeveloped, lazy, senseless plot that actually manages to offend. 

About half of the jokes are tired and groan-worthy affairs that have been done to death in other movies. Get ready to see a stock-nerdy kid moan at his mom for making him look lame because she's a mom and that's lame. The other half are very funny and very clever, playing off of the stereotypes of the characters. That same lame mom character has a particularly hilarious bit when we learn about her music tastes. And continuing on a positive note, the movie is very colorful and animates very well. The characters really come to life and some cool things are done visually every now and again. 

But I can't be too positive. Two big things really ground my gears, which brings me to my conclusion that this is a very bad movie. The first is that the movie establishes an interesting, tough dilemma, but really doesn't solve it at all. Mike and Sully both want to be great scarers, but Mike lacks natural talent and struggles actually performing, and Sully is too caught up on resting on his laurels and doesn't want to hit the books. Do they better themselves? Sometimes they do things that are impressive within the context of this movie, but it always feels fake. Mike doesn't find any solution at all for his problem, and Sully consistently refuses to hit the books and try harder. And for whatever reason, even though they both seem to have equal problems to me, the movie looks down upon Mike more and Sully less, which is jarring. 

The second problem is what actually managed to strike me as unethical, which is the elitism that the movie defends. Other professions besides scaring are always treated as a complete joke by this movie. At one point Mike is discouraged from scaring, and goes to a class about the production of scare canisters, which is an important role in this society, but even the professor hates it. There are a few stock-nerd characters that Mike is trapped into playing with in a scaring competition, and two of them show passion for unique career choices of their own, but by the end of the film they still decide to go for scaring. Their "skill" that is "gained" in scaring is even faker than Mike and Sully's because their apparent skill gain is usually just meant to be goofy anyway, because the notion of these characters doing well with scaring is laughable. 

This isn't a good movie. Unlike Cars, I can't even say that it isn't bad, because it is. It's very bad. The movie struggles to make a point, and when it does, it's not very nice. There are some laughs that are truly great, and Pixar is still able to make a very pretty movie, but that's not enough to pull this lazy movie out of the mud. If this wasn't a sequel, I wouldn't believe you if you told me it's a Pixar movie.  

Man of Steel (Film) - Review

For the last five, maybe ten years, Batman has been the king of superheroes in the mainstream, as well as in the not-so-mainstream realm of actual comic books. Because of this, the hype for Man of Steel, a Superman movie directed by Zach Snyder and produced by Christopher Nolan, has been big. The movie is out today, and it's great. Snyder and co. have crafted a fantastic story that nails what makes Superman so special, and sets a pretty much perfect foundation for future movies, but some shoddy film-making takes away from the high quality of the story. 

This movie starts from the beginning of the Superman mythos, with Kal-El being born into a dying Krypton and put into a spaceship to Earth, where a pleasant country family finds and adopts him as their own. Krypton is filled with future-technology and dragon-like creatures and it's all quite cool. The premise is established clearly in this scene - Kal-El is being sent to Earth, and once he's there, he would be like a god to humans. His loving parents reluctantly say goodbye to their son, finding comfort in the possibility that he'll serve as a source of hope for humanity. 

Man of Steel nails the most important thing for it to nail - Superman's supreme moral goodness. Superman is much more powerful than anyone on Earth, but chooses to do good. Having these powers gives him a heightened sense of moral responsibility. Life is sacred to him, regardless of whether it be humans, or Kryptons, and he feels as though he has to help because he can. We see Kal-El, or as his Earth parents come to name him,  Clark Kent, struggling with his place in the world from a young age, to a teenaged age, to an adult age. Henry Cavill does the role flawlessly as well: There isn't much more one could ask from him. The various child and teen actors Snyder casts as Clark at earlier stages in his life do an equally impressive job for their respective roles. 

Not only does Clark have to figure himself out, but he needs to be accepted amongst the people of Earth, as he's potentially very dangerous from an outsider's perspective. Because of this, General Zod is the perfect villain to use first, because his philosophy towards Earth is the exact opposite. The movie smartly compares his mentality to cold, evolutionary biology - the dominant species will get rid of the inferior ones, and claim their land and recourses as their own. Michael Shannon's performance is nothing special but he does his job, and Zod's an intimidating villain, threatening the entire planet. It's through this character that humanity understands that Superman is not a threat. He's the perfect character foil, exemplifying Superman's supreme moral goodness.

The problem with the movie is that it doesn't have the punch that it needs. The movie has an excellent story and sets up an excellent world with an excellent hero-villain dichotomy, but it doesn't deliver the powerful cinema that it needed to. There are essentially two action scenes, both of which are quite long, and they're not that great at all. The first action scene is cleverly brutal, showing truly the first challenge that Clark faces, having been amongst mere humans his whole life, but it's really just a bunch of punching. A bunch of punching for a long period of time with buildings blowing up all over the place gets boring. The second fight scene, at the end, is mostly more of the same from the first, albeit with some cool things thrown in here and there - like Zod attempting to hit Superman with a girder only to have Kal's laser beams cut it in half - but it's not enough. Aside from just better action, more could have been done, like cheers or teary-eyed thank-you's from the people of Metropolis, but none of that is here. The only fist-pumpingly exciting scene in the movie is a small moment that a member of the supporting cast has. 

And then there are smaller things that I didn't like. This is a nitpick, but Snyder has Cavill doing a good bit of screaming in the movie, and it's a little annoying. Less of a nitpick, Amy Adams plays a very well-written Lois Lane, but she doesn't have the fierceness that I want a badass reporter like Lois to have. She has a soft voice and a welcoming gaze, and that's not what I want. And the comedy here is good but I could have used maybe a bit more to help cleanse my palette from all of the sternness. It is a movie about a dude that wears a big, red cape, after all.

But overall it really is great. Not only are Superman and General Zod brilliantly built up, but the supporting cast is excellent. Russell Crowe is a perfect Jor-El (Superman's actual father); assertive yet calm and collected. Diane Lane and Kevin Costner as Clark's adoptive parents are sweethearts. Laurence Fishburne as the editor-in-chief of the Daily Planet and Christopher Meloni (Stabler!) also stick out, especially the latter, whom steals the show with that fist-pumpingly good scene I mentioned earlier. Despite the action being nothing special, the special effects and the hammering score in the background are impressive. And the ending is cute. 

Like The Amazing Spider-Man from last year, Man of Steel is a great, but not excellent or fantastic movie, that lays a pretty much perfect foundation for sequels. This movie gives us an amazing Superman made even better by a brilliant character foil in General Zod. It just simply isn't as enjoyable of a movie as this story could have easily been, due mostly in part to action that is just okay. But it's the first movie in a series, and with that in mind, what Zach Snyder and Christopher Nolan delivered is admirable.