Mark Reviews Movies: THE MITCHELLS VS. THE MACHINES

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Review by Mark Dujsik | April 29, 2021

In its opening minutes, The Mitchells vs. the Machines seems to tell us everything we need to know about this story and the style with which it will be told. There's a frenetic momentum to the animated film's in media res prologue, as an ordinary family of four races from an army of flying robots. The end of the world has arrived, in the form of a technological takeover, and the Mitchells, a plain and decidedly non-superheroic group, are humanity's last hope.

The key to the sequence, as well as to a lot of the film's approach and humor, is that it's seen from the perspective of Katie (voice of Abbi Jacobson), a teenager who has grown up with and making movies. As a result, she sees the world in terms of plot through lines, dramatic moments, and all of the fun filters and emoji and other doodads from a life of living through social media. This film adopts Katie's way of looking at the world, in which any cool moment has to be portrayed in slow-motion or a freeze frame, every momentous emotion has to have an animated character highlighting that feeling, and every situation has a logical—or reasonably illogical—conclusion.

It's a lot to take in from the start, in other words. Screenwriters Michael Rianda, who also directed, and Jeff Rowe, who served as the co-director, don't want to spend a single minute of their story without some self-aware narration or dialogue, some effect that visualizes Katie's worldview, or some gag, either pointed satire about our reliance on technology or a montage of the Mitchell patriarch being tricked into kissing the family dog repeatedly.

It may be a lot, but importantly, it's not too much, because the filmmakers set up these expectations from the start, follow through on them to the end, and, surprisingly, also know that all of these shenanigans need to be grounded in something authentic and authentically affecting. The film may have style to spare, but it doesn't spare us a heartfelt depiction of an ordinary family, driven a bit apart by time but taking the time—in the midst of a robot apocalypse—to make an effort to be close again.

After the action-packed opening, the story goes back a few weeks earlier. Katie has applied and is accepted to go to film school in Los Angeles, and she's excited to meet people who are on her wavelength. Save for her younger and dinosaur-obsessed brother Aaron (voiced by Rianda), her family has never really understood her way of thinking, her way of seeing the world, and her sense of humor.

Katie's mother Linda (voice of Maya Rudolph) is supportive, but her father Rick (voice of Danny McBride) won't even bother to watch one of his daughter's silly little movies. He's convinced Katie can't make a living with this hobby and wishes she'd consider a back-up plan. That one conversation, on the eve of her departure for college, is the last straw for Katie.

Realizing he might lose a connection with his daughter forever, Rick surprises Katie with a family road trip—plus the clan's goofy, cross-eyed pug—to L.A., for one last week of family togetherness before everything changes. Meanwhile, Mark Bowman (voice of Eric André), a technology mogul who has revolutionized artificial intelligence, is launching a new line of robotic personal assistants. His first A.I. creation PAL (voice of Olivia Colman) doesn't take too kindly to being literally tossed in the garbage and takes control of the robots. Its goal is to capture every human on the planet, starting a new civilization of technology.

The Mitchells, of course, are caught up in the middle of the robot revolution. Rick wants to hide and have a chance to show off his survival skills (His gift of a specific type of screwdriver to every member of his family comes in handy on a few occasions, although Linda would rather not discuss how it was an anniversary present). Katie, having grown up on stories of heroism, thinks the family should fight the robot threat head-on.

The rest of plot, while mostly formulaic and building toward a busy action climax, does provide a fine balance of the filmmakers' off-kilter humor and a genuine concern for these relationships, particularly the strained one between father and daughter. One moment, the family is battling a horde of "smart" appliances, swarms of a specific brand of talking doll (Anyone alive in the '90s will remember it), and a giant version of that furry robotic toy in a shopping mall. In the next, there's a sincere scene between Katie, who eventually learns how much of his own life her father willingly gave up for her, and Rick, who clings to memories of happier times while struggling to understand the person his daughter has become.

It's funny, obviously, with such clever touches as a seemingly perfect family (The parents are voiced by John Legend and Chrissy Teigen) who's the envy of Linda and a pair of malfunctioning robots that join the Mitchells' fight—while also trying and constantly failing to be like humans. The jokes and the stylistic flourishes come and go at a consistent and rapid pace, and the animation style, giving a colorful and cartoon-ish sensibility to the 3-D images, accentuates that gag-centric approach.

What surprises, though, is just how earnest and touching The Mitchells vs. the Machines can be, in both its few quieter moments and even its comedy or action. The family here, because of their quirks and despite their role as unlikely heroes in a madcap action-comedy, feels real, and by the end, it's their fight to stay a family that lingers beyond all the jokes.

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