A charmingly oddball family is humanity’s last hope during a robot apocalypse in The Mitchells vs. the Machines, an animated movie that will get you teary over the loveable group of weirdos that is any family while also giving you a solid adventure and some big laughs.
Like many a teen, Katie Mitchell (voice of Abbi Jacobson) is excited to be heading to college, where she can further explore her love of movies and movie-making and find “her people” as she puts it, after a childhood where she never felt like she clicked with her peers. Already she is making friends with her future fellow film students who are wowed by her many short films, most of them starring her strange dog Monchi. Her younger brother Aaron (voice of Michael Rianda), a hard-core dinosaur aficionado, is sad to see her go, as is her mom, Linda (voice of Maya Rudolph). But it’s Katie’s dad, Rick (voice of Danny McBride), who seems to be taking it the hardest. He’s never really understood Katie’s movie-making and is himself more of an outdoorsy guy for whom the robot apocalypse comes with the silver lining of getting to break all of his family’s phones and devices.
The apocalypse starts, of course, in Silicon Valley, where Mark Bowman (voice of Eric André), the CEO of PAL (a company whose whole look is a rather impressively crafted mash-up of Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Google), introduces the newest product in his line of smart phones and other smart devices. PAL MAX is a robot that can clean up and make you breakfast while also playing music and doing other “smart” tasks. Unfortunately, the original PAL (excellently voiced by the excellent Olivia Colman) does not like being discarded as part of this upgrade and so decides to use the system Mark so helpfully embedded in everything from the new PAL robots to washing machines and refrigerators to take over the world. Humans, that faulty technology that has been torturing smart devices with impatient requests and nacho-covered finger swipes, will be boxed up (in stylish hexagons!) and sent into space.
As the apocalypse is unleashed, the Mitchells are on an awkward family road trip to take Katie to college. She had planned to fly there but Rick, desperate to bond, canceled her tickets (and got her excused from orientation week, to Katie’s horror) and the Mitchells set out to see the sights and attempt to find understanding. At least until robots crash through the wall of the roadside attraction they’re visiting and start whisking people away.
I realize this plot description doesn’t necessarily sound like a kids’ movie — nor would my list of favorite elements of this movie, including the perfect family Linda wistfully follows on Instagram (voiced by, of course, Chrissy Teigen and John Legend), a pair of defective robots (voiced by Beck Bennett and Fred Armisen) and the many, many jabs at Big Tech (including one literal jab to Mark Bowman that completely cracked me up). But The Mitchells vs. the Machines is a solid bit of family entertainment, good for (based on some of the scarier elements) maybe third-graders and up (Common Sense Media gives it an age 8+ rating). The robots are as often goofy as they are terrifying and Colman is able to make PAL both scary and also kind of petty, which takes the edge off. There is a fair amount of talking about family and the like but I feel like the pacing and the accompanying visuals don’t make the story stop when the talking begins.
The movie has a strong foundation, building its story and characters on the premise of a family that loves each other even if it doesn’t always understand each other. Rick’s frustration with Katie seems to come from a mix of just not getting her movies and what they mean to her (and a general “bah, technology” mindset) and a fear that her dream will end in disappointment just as his did. From a parent perspective, the movie does a good job of mixing that “what’s a Tik Tok”-ness with all the baggage you bring to your hopes for your kid and how all that well-intentioned stuff looks from the kid’s point of view. And maybe kids can soak in some of the “hooray for your family and all its quirks and unusual interests” with all the robot hijinks and pug-related silliness.
The movie also has a very fun visual style, a blend of that rounded computer animation with the big expressive faces (think The Croods) with internet graphics and doodle-y illustration. And while that might sound visually busy, it’s always used for good effect.
The Mitchells vs. the Machines had me hooked in from the beginning with the way it allowed Katie to feel her not-fitting-in feelings but still allowed her to always be confident in herself and then totally won me over with its eyeball-grabbing animation and its expertly used voice performances. A
Featured photo: The Mitchells vs. the Machines
