I’ve always thought “Monsters, Inc.” was the most underrated of the Pixar films. It came out the same years as “Shrek,” which grabbed the Academy Award for animated feature and most of the limelight. But it was a sweet, playful story with a smart twist on the scary monsters every child imagines is hiding in their closet.

The sequel, or rather prequel, arrives 12 years later and can’t meet the high standard set by its predecessor, though it’s still an enjoyable romp. Since “Inc.” pretty much wrapped up all the troubles facing that universe — with the monsters switching to making tykes laugh instead of scream to solve their energy crisis — there wasn’t anywhere to go, story-wise.

Solution: go backward!

So we tag along as green, one-eyed cue ball Mike Wazowski (Billy Crystal) and furry blue behemoth James P. Sullivan (John Goodman) make their debut as freshmen on the campus of “Monsters University.” Rather than best buds, they’re rivals competing for status as the big scarer on campus (BSOC?).

There’s an unavoidable disconnect here, since we know all the sweat and toil they put into horrifying kids will eventually come to naught. And Crystal and Goodman, two guys in their 60s trying to pass vocally as teenagers, sound like … two guys in their 60s straining at the upper ends of their voice range.

Randall, the fearsome disappearing serpent voiced by Steve Buscemi, turns up in a bit part as Mike’s awkward roommate, who falls in with the misguided popular crowd. It seems a poor use of a really good character.

The animation is terrific, and we get to see some more crazy variations of monster biology, including a snail student who races to get to class on time, unsuccessfully. I’d advise you to skip the 3D upgrade, since it doesn’t really seem to add much to the spectacle.

The story boils down to a pretty standard college comedy, though toned down for a G rating compatible with even the smallest audience members. There are familiar jocks-versus-nerds contests, dissimilar fraternity brothers finding an unlikely bond, and even a scary dean cracking down on all the fun.

The dean, named Hardscrabble, is voiced by Helen Mirren and is the best creation in the new movie. She scritches about on chitinous legs with an insectoid torso, flies around on bat wings and always seems to be standing so her face is cast in shadow. Neat trick, that.

Hardscrabble, a legendary scarer in her own right, doesn’t think either Mike or Sulley has what it takes. So they’re forced to enter, and win, the annual Greek Scare Games in order to get back into her loathsome graces.

Rebuffed by the top fraternities, the boys have to join up with Oozma Kappa, a lame bunch of reject monsters (“We’re O.K.!”). They include Don (Joel Murray), a tentacled middle-aged salaryman giving college another try; Squishy (Peter Sohn), a multiple-eyed pile of goop with a confidence problem; Art (Charlie Day), a dippy hippie type who looks like an inverted “U” with purple fur and four hands; and Terri/Terry (Sean Hayes and Dave Foley), a two-headed dude who doesn’t always agree with himself.

There’s some nice byplay as Sulley and Mike butt … well, cranial surfaces. (Mike doesn’t really have a head, unless you count his whole body as one.) The set-up is that Sullivan is the natural talent from a prodigious family of scarers who tries to skate by without trying, while Mike is a grind who knows the academia of fright in and out, but lacks that certain something.

Director Dan Scanlon and fellow screenwriters Robert L. Baird and Daniel Gerson are Pixar backbenchers called up for a turn at bat, and they acquit themselves without swinging for the fences. “Monsters University” is a reasonably fun, not terribly original but never boring ride with a pair of old, likable chums.

Note: the film is preceded by a 7-minute short, “The Blue Umbrella,” written and directed by Saschka Unseld. It’s about everyday city objects secretly coming to life, and it’s a charming mix of hyper-realistic animation and cartoony tropes.

4 Yaps

Poor Nicholas Hoult. The young actor has the dis-privilege of starring in two of the year’s most underrated films.

First was the whimsical horror-romance “Warm Bodies,” which didn’t cause too much of a ruckus at the box office. And then came “Jack the Giant Slayer,” an action-heavy take on the classic beanstalk tale that bombed, despite lavish production values and a budget approaching $200 million.

It’s a shame, because “Jack” stands much taller as a piece of pure entertainment than similar movies like “Oz: The Great and Powerful” or “Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters.”

Hoult plays Jack, a humble farm boy whose life goes on a wild ride after the magic beanstalk carries a beautiful princess into the clouds. It seems the giants were banished there eons ago by the humans, and their two-headed king has half a mind to seek his heaven on earth.

Stanley Tucci, Eleanor Tomlinson, Ewan McGregor and Ian McShane nicely fill out the cast as, respectively, the villain, the princess, the dashing knight and the gruff king.

But the real stars are the computer-generated giants – great, hairy, burping beasts whose brutish manners and seeming lack of a feminine gender make their abode seem like the ultimate oversized frat house.

Director Bryan Singer, a veteran of the “X-Men” films, keeps the mood light and the action scenes coming at a furious pace. A great many men and animals get squished underfoot by the less-than-graceful giants, and the CGI captures the mayhem in all its glory.

“Jack the Giant Slayer” is a fun, goofy, giddy ride that never dares to take itself too seriously.

Unfortunately, the film’s lackluster performance in theaters may have contributed to a paucity of goodies for the video release. The DVD comes with a few deleted scenes and a gag reel. Upgrading to Blu-ray adds the “Become a Giant Slayer” interactive feature, and that’s it.

Too bad they didn’t go big for the video rollout.

Film: 4 yaps

Extras: 2 yaps

One aspect of movies that I am most demanding about is internal logic. Films often ask the audience to accept fantastical and impossible realities as valid. They accomplish this suspension of disbelief best when they create a set of rules that doesn’t apply in the real world and then adhere to it strictly within the universe they’ve created.

In other words, it’s OK to deviate from reality as long as you set up new and consistent standards of expectations and then stay the course with this new “deck of cards,” so to speak.

In my criticism, I am often harshest on movies that make new rules and then continually break them for the convenience of the plot. For example, I had trouble getting fully invested in the “Harry Potter” flicks because it seemed there was always a new spell or magical item that happened to turn up right around the time the heroes needed it.

The problem with this method of storytelling (or lack thereof) is that when there are no rules, the viewer comprehends a total lack of consequences, too. It feels like the storytellers are just winging it, writing themselves into and out of corners on a whim.

To continue the deck of cards analogy, every card becomes wild and any kind of coherent game impossible.

The Pixar animated movies, on the other hand, are notable for generally being extraordinarily diligent in constructing and maintaining the internal logic of their stories. Take the “Cars” movies, for example.

They exist in a world where cars are not modes of transport but sentient beings. As such, they remove any allusion to the way humans would use a vehicle — their doors never open, the front windshield becomes the car’s eyes while all the other windows are grayed out, there are no references to cars being bought and sold as property, etc.

With this in mind, I thought I’d take a look at the metaphysics of the three “Toy Story” films. As the first feature film and cornerstone of the Pixar franchise, the 1995 film and its two sequels offer the best example of how the filmmakers (mostly) adhere to the rules they set forth for this world.

Apologies in advance if this seems overlong and indulgent. But as the father of a small boy who’s had to sit through the “Toy Story” films multiple times, I’ve had the (ahem) opportunity to make these sort of observations and ponder them.

Since I’ll be referencing multiple specific instances from all three movies, for the purposes of brevity I’ll refer to the films simply as TS1, TS2 and TS3.

Altered reality

The first thing to note about the “Toy Story” world is that it is our world, which is to say the setting for the tale is just an animated version of the real one with one significant fictional alteration: Toys come to life when children are not playing with them.

This contrasts with other Pixar movies like “Cars” or “WALL-E” where everything is completely different (vehicles are the predominant species, Earth has been abandoned by humans). “Toy Story” takes place in present day, normal middle-class suburban America.

The notion of taking an everyday setting and putting a fantasy spin on it is hardly novel. This is especially true when it comes to giving human intelligence and qualities to creatures or objects that do not possess them, e.g., the insects in “A Bug’s Life.”

A common trait in these sorts of tales is that this altered reality is posited as being fact, but humans are just too dumb or misguided to have noticed. This is the set-up in all the “Toy Story” movies: Toys have always had secret lives; we just didn’t know about them.

Another important aspect is that this separate existence of toys actually occurs; it’s not just a figment of the imagination of a precocious child, like in the comic strip “Calvin and Hobbes.”

Biology

Let’s talk toy biology in the Pixar trilogy.

The toys share some human characteristics but not others. For example, toys do sleep; there are several examples of them doing so in all three movies. They also dream while they sleep, such as Woody’s nightmare about being abandoned by Andy in TS2. Toys also get tired from overexertion, such as during the long trek to Al’s Toy Barn in TS2.

It appears they they do need to breathe — or at least the anthropomorphic toys do. In TS1, Woody causes Buzz Lightyear to panic by retracting his helmet shield. In TS2, Buzz pulls this same trick on his duplicate to prove his identity to his friends. And in TS3, after the aging dog Buster lies down on Woody, he hurriedly pushes him away, catching his breath as if he were in danger of being smothered.

However, the toys do not need to consume food or water. At no point in the three movies are they demonstrated doing so. Their bodies do not grow or diminish; indeed, apart from injury and decay, they do not change at all during their life cycle.

Speaking of injury: Toys can feel pain, although this seems to be a reaction to the act of being injured rather than a biologically encoded response. They are not incapacitated by the loss of limbs or other body parts. There are multiple examples of the toys experiencing pain; here is Woody’s reaction to having his arms pulled by Jessie in TS2:

However, Woody continues to function after losing his arm, though he experiences no pain once it is separated from him other than emotional stress. Indeed, toys can continue to function even after having their heads ripped off and their body parts exchanged with those from other toys, as demonstrated by the evil next-door neighbor Sid in TS1.

Some toys that are designed with interchangeable parts, notably Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head, can freely remove their limbs, eyes, nose, etc. without pain. These pieces can even operate independently despite being separated from the main body. In TS3, Mr. Potato Head even removed all his body parts from the hollow plastic potato shell, attached them to a piece of pita bread and was able to function more or less normally (until the pita was destroyed by a hungry pigeon). He later pulls the same trick with a cucumber.

This raises a question left largely unanswered by the “Toy Story” movies: For toys, where does the soul reside? For Mr. Potato Head, consciousness seems to exist as much in the mustache as the torso.

Although they do not eat or drink, some toys derive at least some of their functionality from batteries. Although I should note the films generally avoid the question of what happens to a battery-powered toy when its batteries are removed or lose power. Would Buzz fall over unconscious if his batteries were taken out?

This is supposition, but I think the answer is “no.” The toys’ consciousness and life force seem to reside separately of an external power source. Cutting off their power would simply cause them to lose certain abilities as toys. For Buzz, that would mean his voice buttons and blinking lights.

The best evidence for this is the rocket scene near the end of TS1. Buzz and Woody are trying to catch up with the gang in the moving truck aboard RC, the radio-controlled car. But RC’s batteries die out and they are left stranded until Woody comes up with the idea of using the rocket. Note that throughout this scene, the battery-depleted RC is still conscious:

Stay tuned for Part 2 next week, when I’ll discuss how the Toy Story rules vary from toy to toy, and their approach to religion, love and life and death.

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“A Field in England”

It’s England during the Civil War, and a small group of deserters flee from a raging battle through an overgrown field.

Alchemist O’Neil (Michael Smiley, 2011′s “Kill List”) draws the group into his search for hidden treasure that, after lunching on mushrooms, descends into chaos and paranoia.

The cast list is almost as quirky as the plot. Reece Shearsmith from British TV show “The League of Gentlemen” stars alongside other well-known (and different kind of weird) British TV show star Julian Barratt of “The Mighty Boosh.”

It takes a person with special vision to make a psychedelic Civil War film, and that’s Ben Wheatley, who directs, with his partner, Amy Jump, writing the script. They’re the team responsible for camping romp turned horror film ”Sightseers” (2012), a must see.

“A Field in England” boasts mindbending scenes — maybe a bit Monty Python-esque mixed with some Lars von Trier and a bit of Terrence Malick. However, be advised that the film gets decidedly nasty in some bits despite its wacky storyline (if you can call it that).

Some have called the film completely unnecessary and without purpose. It’ll be an auditory and visual experience for sure and definitely a fresh idea to behold on screen.

Produced by Film4.0, its unique in that it is released in cinemas, on DVD, free TV and on-demand TV on one day.

“Populaire”

This very chic French romcom set in the 1950s was released in France last year and is currently getting a worldwide release.

Rose Pamphyle (Deborah Francois) sees a way out of her future as a housewife when she interviews for a secretary role for handsome Louis Echard (Romain Duris). Even though the interview is awful, she gets the job after he sees her demon typing speed.

Wanting to fulfill his unfulfilled dream of being a sporting champion, he coaches Rose to enter the world of competitive typing.

“Populaire” zips us back to those great ’50s films like “Roman Holiday” (1953). Alfred Hitchcock’s work is cited as an influence for the overall feel of the film, along with “The Seven Year Itch” (1955), by director Regis Roinsard.

The success of “The Artist” which shares similarities, has paved the way for “Populaire,” and there will no doubt be some comparisons between the two. Bérénice Bejo has a small part in Roinsard’s film and is the sassier, more American ’50s woman as opposed to Francois’ pretty country girl.

Francois’ preparation for the role went as far as up to three hours of lessons a day on the typewriter; those are her hands typing at speed in the film. To prepare for the audition, she practiced for a week beforehand and impressed with her typing speed even then.

Duris, somewhat of a heartthrob in France, sees to comes second to Francois in the film but provides excellent support. He’s a reserved guy, much like “Mad Men”‘s Don Draper, but has a cheekier and outgoing persona than the king of stoicism.

Despite the fluffy storyline, viewers will be impressed with the attention to detail that has gone into the costumes and the high-quality cast, which adds to the overall atmosphere of the film; one that harks back to classic films from the era. They even went as far as sourcing the lingerie from corsetry house Cadolle in Paris so that the girls had the right silhouette and posture of 1950s style.

“Summer in February”

This romantic drama set just before the outbreak of The Great War is based on an acclaimed novel and a true story, so there’ll be lots of brownie points if you take your girlfriend to see it.

Set amongst the rugged Cornish coastline, the Newlyn School of artists receives a new addition, Florence Carter-Wood (Emily Browning, 2011′s “Sleeping Beauty”), who is caught in a love triangle between Gilbert Evans (Dan Stevens of “Downton Abbey” fame) who owns the estate the School sits on, and equestrian artist Alfred Munnings (Dominic Cooper of 2008′s “The Duchess”).

Gilbert is the solid dependable friend who takes his time getting to know Florence and Alfred is the passionate artist pushing her artistic boundaries. These are predictable characters in a well-used storyline, but the stunning scenery and heavy pre-war atmosphere make up for it.

The School is not just for teaching but is a community of various sorts of people who live together in this experimental way — both exciting and dangerous, and the perfect cauldron in which to brew a passionate love triangle.

Alfred, or AJ, Munnings is a real-life 20th-century artist, and the novel, written by Jonathan Smith (who interestingly taught Stevens at school and also wrote the screenplay) was given good reviews at the time of publication.

“The Stone Roses: Made of Stone”

I’m young enough that at the beginning of the trailer I said, “Oh, cool! A film about Oasis.” No, it’s not, and I’ve probably blasphemed. This is a highly anticipated film for die-hard fans of the band who split in the mid-1990s.

After a series of rumours and whisperings, they returned in 2012 with a world tour beginning in Warrington, Manchester.

Shane Meadows (2006′s “This is England”) directs this highly immersive documentary/concert film. He’s a true  fan of the band, getting so caught up in the reunion that he puts himself in front of the camera to talk about his feelings about it.

Meadows’ film brings in a personal element by including fans talking about their memories of the band and their feelings about the reunion, adding a much needed human element.

Other News…

The newest Superman film has finally swooped onto big screens after a long wait and an extensive marketing campaign. Briton Henry Cavill joins the ranks of actors who have donned the famous red cape. From the trailer and posters, it seems his chiseled good looks fit the bill; he has a look of Christopher Reeve about him, the actor most well-known for the role.

Cavill went through an intensive fitness regimen to gain the lean but muscular figure of Superman as well as a lot of work to develop his Midwestern accent. He’s the third Brit to join the superhero hall of fame recently after Christian Bale (Batman) and Andrew Garfield (Spider-Man).

A trailer has finally arrived for “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug,” probably way too early since it’s not due for release for another six months. Bilbo (Martin Freeman) continues his journey to the Misty Mountains and meets the cunning dragon Smaug (voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch).

Sal Mamby Got the Flu

When a character’s best laid plans change unexpectedly, forcing the character into a Catch-22 of obviously disastrous replacement options. Of course, the main character will make the poorer of those choices. Derives from “The Fighter,” where Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg) is goaded into an impromptu fight with a boxer 20 lbs heavier than he is, because his original opponent, Sal Mamby, who was hand-picked as a good matchup for him and well-scouted and prepared for, got the flu and was unable to fight. Of course, he badly lost the fight, which starts a downward spiral for the character. See also “He’s Been on the Couch.”

The Offscreen Savior

A well-worn trope in action and horror films where the hero or another sympathetic character is in a compromising position, on the verge of being killed by a villain. The bad guy raises his or her weapon and prepares to strike…when another offscreen character saves the hero.  The Offscreen Savior is often someone thought to be dead or otherwise incapacitated or is someone who made a mistake or developed a reputation for being a screw-up during the course of the film, allowing that character to be redeemed.

Examples of the Offscreen Savior include the following (note: some of these references contain SPOILERS):

Han Solo in the Millenium Falcon saving Luke Skywalker from Darth Vader and his TIE Fighter in “Star Wars”

Officer Al Powell in “Die Hard” saving a vulnerable John and Holly McClane from the gun of Karl in “Die Hard”

Lt. Commander Worf saving Captain Picard from a Borgified Lt. Hawk in “Star Trek: First Contact.”

Catwoman saving Batman from Bane in “The Dark Knight Rises”

The Judy Greer

This is the “best friend” of one of the leads in a romantic comedy. Their only purpose is to be funny, supply wisdom and question the lead about what has happened so far in the plot. They will have no traits or subplots of their own aside from inconsequential comedic ones that the lead will not be heavily invested in, but will be infinitely more talented and interesting than the heroine, but held back because of the constraints of the plot. Named for Judy Greer, a veteran second banana in romantic comedies.

The Marty Discount

The tendency for film critics and fans alike to give inflated ratings to filmmakers they personally favor or who are typically critically acclaimed, even when the films themselves are less than stellar. Fans will give the “Marty Discount” to movies starring directors and/or actors they like typically because they want to love the movie they’re seeing rather than actually judging the movie on its own merit. Named for positive reviews of “Shutter Island,” a substandard film that coasted on the fact that it was made by Martin Scorsese.