Monsters University:  A

You know that scene in The Silence of the Lambs where Jodi Foster and a bunch of guys check out the dead body of one of Buffalo Bill’s victims?  Remember how they put some sort of white stuff under their noses, presumably to mask the smell of rotting flesh?  Well, before you go see Monsters University, find out what that stuff is and rub a ton of it under your nose, ’cause you’re gonna need it.  Why?  Because everybody in the theater, to a person, will shit himself or herself in absolute terror, and you don’t want to smell that, because then you’d probably barf, and then you’d also have to deal with the smell of barf.  You might also want to look into getting some adult diapers, but that depends on your tolerance of how much shit can be in your pants.

This isn’t terrifying in your usual horror movie fashion.  It’s not about sudden shocks and gore.  It’s just that it creates a very real, plausible explanation as to why we are frightened.  If there are monsters, then why is the evidence of them so scarce?  It’s because they live in a different dimension, and they only come into ours for the sole purpose of scaring us.

Their devotion to frightening people is so fervent that they even have educational institutions that promote the psychological torment of the human race.  And what’s worse, they deliberately go for the children.  As a parent, I can tell you that I seethed with anger when I was watching this.  Isn’t it bad enough that I have Michelle Obama trying to tell my kid what to eat?  Do I really need monsters giving them psychological trauma?

The story follows one monster, a gruesome cyclopian ball named Mike, as he goes through a program to learn how to be a “scarer”, while the whole time he is casually indifferent to the plight of the children he hopes to permanently damage.  Why is his name something so simple like Mike?  To remind us of the banality of evil.

I only recommend this movie if you can completely separate yourself from what the fictional, although completely believable, world that’s created.  Whatever you do, don’t be like the morons who brought their kids to see this.  Seriously, there was a two-year-old sitting right next to me.  He was so disturbed by it that he called me “Daddy”.  Sure, he looked like he was really entertained by it, and so did the adults, but I know the truth.