Metacritic reviews

It’s easily the most enjoyable animated film so far this year, one that is visually stunning, wickedly subversive, incredibly funny (Day's character is a hoot), and (at times) lump-in-your-throat emotional.

Even when the story mechanics feel more than a bit secondhand, the exquisite interplay of vibrant pastel hues and almost photorealist textures (smoothly but not crucially enhanced in 3D) makes the film a continual pleasure to behold.

Monsters University aces a two-part test—first, appealing to kids with gorgeous, hyperrealistic animation that teases out every pink hair on a beastly art student; then luring in parents with several knowing jokes about strumming your guitar on the quad or playing beer pong.

Monsters University, the latest Pixar offering, charms in an excessively familiar way that illustrates a troublesome eventuality: Pixar has lost its edge.

Monsters University is a prequel that is far more conventional, not nearly as witty or clever as that original.

A fun, disposable watch.

Monsters University feels not like the work of artists eager to express something but like that of likable pros whose existence depends on getting a rise out the kids. It's like the scares Sully and Mike spring on those sleeping tykes: technically impressive but a job un-anchored to anything more meaningful.

This is design work of the highest caliber and it is impossible to not enjoy simply watching these little buggers run around. It is unfortunate, however, that the creativity, originality and propulsive storytelling found in the original “Monsters Inc.” just didn’t matriculate with them.

A humdrum straight line of a film, Monsters University never surprises, goes off in unexpected directions or throws you for a loop in the manner of the best Pixar stories. Nor does it come close to elating through the sheer imagination of its conceits and storytelling.

Unfortunate proof that the animation studio previously known for its brains is now resting a little too heavily on its nominal brawn.