This Week at the Movies

“Monsters University” may not be a Pixar classic on the level of “Wall-E” or “Up,” but it’s a charming, funny, inventive and emotionally satisfying addition to the animation studio’s canon. And it’s easily the most enjoyable mainstream release this summer so far.

In this prequel, Mike (Billy Crystal) and Sully (John Goodman) meet for the first time at the titular college, where the duo hopes to become professional “scarers.”

Sully comes from a family known for its scaring tactics and it’s made him a bit cocky and lethargic, while Mike hopes to change the impression that he is incapable of being scary.

After being kicked out of their “scaring” class by the college’s stern president (Helen Mirren), they assemble a rag tag group of monsters that are more lovable than frightening, start their own fraternity and enter the annual Scarefest competition with the aim of being reinstated to their previous course of study.

The film combines several plotlines, including that of the buddy film and the college sports drama and manages to draw fresh inspiration from both genres.

Pixar has long been considered a groundbreaker in the field of animation, so whenever they release a film that is not destined to go down as one of their best, critics tend to take offense.

“Monsters University” may tread familiar ground, but it does a solid job of it. And while it may not be as thematically rich as some of the studio’s best work, it still has something to say and has a lot of fun doing it in the process.

Marc Forster’s “World War Z” had one of the most troubled shoots of recent years. So, it may come as a surprise to some that the film is pretty decent.

It may not rank among the finest of the zombie subgenre, which include George Romero’s first two “dead” movies and Danny Boyle’s haunting “28 Days Later,” but it’s a good example of large scale Hollywood filmmaking done well.

In the film, Brad Pitt plays a former United Nations field agent who finds himself at the center of a zombie apocalypse.

He secures a spot on an aircraft carrier for his wife and daughters, but on the agreement that he accompanies a search and rescue mission to seek out a cure for the plague that is turning the world’s population into flesh eating ghouls.

The picture opens with a pretty impressive set piece as Pitt and family attempt to flee a zombie-overrun Philadelphia and ends with a more frightening sequence during which Pitt and several scientists search an abandoned lab for medicinal supplies.

In between, there are some nice touches and solid supporting performances, including a brief cameo by David Morse as a former CIA operative and Daniella Kertesz as an Israeli soldier.

“World War Z” may not be a great film, but it is technically proficient and engrossing enough to be able to recommend.

Franck Khalfoun’s “Maniac,” on the other hand, may be the worst movie going experience I’ve had this year thus far.

The picture is a remake of William Lustig’s notorious 1980 cult classic about a serial killer with a troubled childhood who murders women and collects their scalps.

In this remake, Elijah Wood, who is cast against type, plays the psychotic owner of a mannequin shop with a collection of wigs removed from the heads of young women who remind him of his party girl mother, who is seen in flashbacks.

Khalfoun borrows a stylistic gimmick from 1947’s “Lady in the Lake” in that much of the film and its characters are seen from Wood’s first person point of view. In fact, we rarely see the actor unless he happens to look into a mirror or other reflective surface.

The film is actually more lurid than it sounds and includes not one, but at least three extremely graphic sequences of scalping that led me to cover my eyes.

I wasn’t a huge fan of Lustig’s scuzzy original – in fact, I remember kind of despising it as well – but at least I could appreciate its vision of an early 80s New York as hell and its exploration of a pathologically warped mind.

If forced to say one nice thing about this new version, I’ll compliment its haunting electronic score.

Otherwise, this “Maniac” redux is merely ugly for the sake of being ugly. It’s a repulsive experience that will likely have you running for the nearest shower – that is, should you take the extreme measure of actually witnessing it in a theater.

“Monsters University” and “World War Z” are both playing at AMC Loews Bay Terrace 6 and Douglaston’s Movie World.

“Maniac” is screening at Manhattan’s IFC Center.