THE MITCHELLS VS THE MACHINES | FILM REVIEW
Dir: Michael Rianda/Jeff Rowe (PG, 113 mins)
A fantastically enjoyable and very funny adventure from Sony Animation that continues their groundbreaking work on Spiderman: Into The Spiderverse, marrying laughs, thrills and heart. The Mitchells are a dysfunctional ‘weird’ family: dad Rick, voiced by Danny McBride, wants his family to put down their electronic devices, do practical things, use the screwdriver gifts that he bought them and look each other in the eyes for more than 10 seconds. Daughter Katie (Abbi Jacobson), with whom he has the most friction, is a filmmaker, creating quirky videos for her YouTube channel starring her adorably dim pug. Mum (May Rudolph) tries to keep the peace with stickers and calmness and younger brother Aaron (Michael Rianda) is obsessed with dinosaurs and worried about missing his sister when she goes away.
The dad doesn’t understand the daughter and vice versa, so in a bid to patch up their differences the family embark on a road trip to take their daughter to film school. Along the way an apocalypse happens, as tech giant Mark Bowman (Eric Andre), all hipster Apple/Facebook vibes, updates his PAL smart phone system and puts it in robot bodies. Now this Siri equivalent has a body – the app is outdated, but this PAL has become sentient and is voiced by Olivia Colman. Taking over the fleet of robots, she controls all and is set on sending the entire captured human race into space for their lack of empathy. Only the Mitchells – the last remaining unenslaved humans – are able to stop it; trouble is they bicker and are rubbish. Can they save the world?
The Mitchells Vs The Machines is fast, funny and full of satire, attacking those enslaved to their screens, prepared to put up with being blasted into space if they still have free wi-fi. Jokes are made at the expense of Google and Amazon and the film bursts with wit and inventiveness. Katie’s films are multimedia and so is the animation, photos and 2D drawing fusing with regular CGI. There are nods to Tron, Kill Bill and many more as the visual gags come thick and fast, an encounter in a shopping mall with a tribe of Furbys particularly funny. The pug gets many of the best gags, robots unable to define whether it’s a dog, a pig or a loaf of bread, but amidst all the frenetic hilarity is a deeply felt story about family dynamics, that moves and delights. Joyfully fun, Rianda and Rowe’s script crackles with quotable lines; this is a real, laugh-out-loud tonic.
Out now via Netflix
words KEIRON SELF