The Mitchells vs The Machines is a movie that begins with that all American family road trip to college and then seamlessly segues into a robopocalyptic action adventure. This is a movie that cleverly homages everything from National Lampoon, to Dawn of the Dead, to Tron with loving abandon. This is a movie that finally answers that age old question of what those fat, lazy-eyed, mumble-mouthed Furbys are actually saying. And it is as we’ve always suspected. Those goddamn hamster owl abominations are indeed plotting the end of all of humanity.
The Mitchells vs The Machines, which was once called Connected, which was once slated for a cinema release, is yet another big budget animated feature that finds itself shunted onto a streaming service due to the pandemic. (See also: Soul, Raya and the Last Dragon, and the upcoming Luca.) Premiering on Netflix almost 15 months later than its scheduled theatrical run, I was concerned as to how a movie that centered around our obsession with technology would hold up. Would the jokes still land? Would its message pushing the importance of real human connections still make sense to us after spending a year in quarantine? Would it work?
It does. For the most part.
Zoomers Be Zooming
Katie Mitchell (Abbi Jacobson) is your typical zoomer. She feels trapped in her small town where no one, neither at school nor at home, seems to “get” her. Basically, she can’t wait to leave and never come back. Her dog (Doug the Pug) and brother (Mike Rianda) are her closest friends. Her mum (Maya Rudolph) is a bubbling ball of optimism and positivity. And her dad (Danny McBride) just doesn’t understand what she wants to do with her life.
An aspiring filmmaker, Katie applies to film school in California and gets accepted, but her plans to finally be with “her people” are completely upended when her nature-loving dad cancels her flight and plans the ultimate family road trip as a way to rekindle the bond he once had with his daughter.
Things really begin to fall apart when there is a sudden tech uprising and robots from an Apple/Google stand-in called Pal Labs decide that the world will be better off without any humans. Throw in an inept tech bro, a psychotic Siri, two malfunctioning robot sidekicks, and John Legend and Chrissy Teigen and you’ve got yourself a real party. In fact, there is so much in this movie that there were times when I felt that it might have worked better as an eight episode TV series.
The success of The Mitchells vs The Machines lies in how well director Mike Rianda juggles all these genres. So much so that the transition between road trip movie, to zombie apocalypse flick, to out-and-out action adventure never feels jarring. A lot of that has to do with how well the Mitchells are drawn as characters, with their beautifully scripted family dynamic serving as the anchor to what should have been a very crowded film.
Another reason is because of just how gorgeous this movie is.
Explosions of Sound and Colour
With The Mitchells vs The Machines, Sony Pictures Animation is leaning into that hybrid animation style that they pioneered with Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. This blend of 3D CGI and hand drawn comic book stylings is such a refreshing shift away from what every other animation house (with the exception of Cartoon Saloon and Laika) seems to be doing. It is bright, and colourful, and dynamic. There is a richness of texture. There is a real momentum to every scene.
This vintage comic book aesthetic, with its vibrant visual style, serves this story perfectly. The wild colours match the irreverent tone of the movie. There is an adventurous spirit in their approach that still feels new and exciting.
Capturing the Spirit of the Times
If there’s one problem here, it’s the same one that plagues every animated movie that attempts to take on the zeitgeist. These things take so damn long to make that a lot of the “zingers” come off as being old hat. When the movie’s tech bro Mark Bowman (a remarkably sober Eric Andre) remorsefully states, “It’s almost like stealing people’s data and giving it to a hyper-intelligent AI as part of an unregulated tech monopoly was a bad thing,” the joke doesn’t quite have the same impact given there are actual congressional hearings on the matter.
Which isn’t to say that this movie isn’t funny. It is. But most of its best laughs come from The Mitchells half of the movie as opposed to the The Machines half.
The Mitchells vs The Machines vs The Pandemic
I really did love this movie. These were an incredibly fun two hours. One that was made with care and imagination. It isn’t going to change the world, I might not even remember some of the finer plot points a week from now, but watching it allowed me a brief respite from an otherwise worrisome world. It was the perfect escape. And a life affirming one at that.
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