A shy clownfish who travels hundreds of miles in search of his son and an amnesiac royal blue tang who guides him. A rat who knows how to cook joins the illegitimate son of a prestigious chef she doesn’t know. A robot trash compactor on Earth who falls in love with an advanced robot visiting from outer space to inspect for signs of life. A grumpy old retired widower who flies his whole household to Paradise Falls and a chubby jolly little explorer who is accidentally carried away. Here are some of the unique couples that have wonderfully led Pixar Animated Studios to Oscar glory. Now consider this: a little green monster who knows all the ways to scare but can’t really scare anyone, and his powerful college roommate who can scare you to death but is a one pony. trick. Does this Pixar couple seem unique enough to live up to their predecessors? Not really…

That’s the number one problem that Pixar’s latest adventure, Monsters University, has to overcome. Problem number two: the movie is a prequel. Pixar is barely known for making prequels or sequels; its only super-successful franchise is the Toy Story Series, which began in 1995 and has continued with two highly acclaimed sequels, the third being nominated for the prestigious Best Picture at the Oscars. The other well-known franchise is Cars, whose sequel Cars 2 barely scores with critics (although I loved both movies).

This seems to be the decade for Pixar sequels; On the one hand, Monsters University comes ten years after the brilliant Monsters Inc, while on the other, the Pixar classic Finding Nemo continues its legacy with Finding Dory, which will be released in two years. Sequels or prequels equals familiarity, and we always look forward to Pixar giving us something new and original. No one gets upset when rival studio Dreamworks hangs on to their green ogre Shrek to make money, but we expect much better things from Pixar, so the thought of seeing their memorable characters do another act baffles us because we’ve already seen the best.

Problem number three: this movie is set in a university. You may wonder what’s wrong with that? American Pie was set in college and it worked. But keep in mind why American Pie worked: It was an R-rated comedy about the three-letter word with a lot of four-letter words used in their three-letter word context. Monsters University is rated G, and its comedy involves watching the lunch lady serve trash to the students while the freshmen are given a totally positive image during a Monsters University orientation led by a hyper-cheerful girl. There are jock monsters, geeky monsters, blonde monsters, prep monsters, and other monsters of all shapes, sizes, and colors at this university run by a die-hard dragon Dean. Oh so familiar you’d think if these were actors instead of monsters this movie would have been instantly forgotten.

Some of the names are also cringe-worthy: the film’s protagonist, Mike, attended ‘Frighton’ Primary School as a child. It’s an interpretation of the word “fear”, understand? Uhm… not that bright. Also, during this movie you would be surprised to find sequences that remind you of other movies. There is an ‘initiation ceremony’ that will take you directly into the Ring of Fire sequence from Finding Nemo. The first part itself with the monster introductions feels similar to another Hotel Transylvania animated movie, which though spent too much time showing off one monster after another. Five problems or rather challenges already, and Pixar manages to overcome them all? Yes, to a large extent it does.

I’d probably use the word ‘redeem’ rather than overcome here; Monsters University redeems itself by getting its magic publishing period back from Pixar. Until then, your eyes don’t open with the usual sense of wonder while watching Pixar movies. You want to be doe-eyed like protagonist Mike when he first enters Monsters University, but unfortunately you’re squinting. When you see his initial rivalry with Sullivan, you feel like you’ve seen this all before. Even as actress Helen Mirren unleashes hers Miranda Priestley and sister Aloysius as Dean Hardscrabble, you still wait longing for Pixar cues again, feeling like you’re watching a Dreamworks movie that’s been wrongly marketed as Pixar’s.

In the meantime, I coined the term ‘Pixar blemish’ for this film, because I found nothing positively surprising in this work. However, this term would not be used for this film at all, as the second half surprised me, to a large extent.

The movie wakes up and becomes completely special once the Pixar magic slowly fills up as the fear meter used by students at Monsters University to record children’s fear levels. Once Mike makes a bet with Dean Hardscrabble to keep him in the ‘Scar Program’ (he is suspended from it for creating chaos during his exam) if he is the winner of a college event called ‘Scar Games’, he joins. with four other frat boys who aren’t the least bit scary and his rival Sullivan, who is also suspended and joins his team Oozma Kappa only to get back on the show; when the team begs to understand each other’s strengths and capabilities, you begin to see the Pixar flashing light you’ve been waiting for so long. There’s an unexpected surprise that I won’t reveal here, and finally, the film’s broader themes seem to have the depth of Pixar’s previous efforts. The only problem at the end is the first half itself, which while it seems necessary after watching the whole movie, doesn’t have any Pixar sparkle moments. That little jittery lamp you see every time the logo appears (he’s Luxor Jr., from a previous short) was probably on low voltage until the interval. Thank God it all worked out afterward and it burned brightly. But I was constantly worried that the little light bulb would go off, and I don’t want to have that feeling again, not from Pixar.