The Mitchells vs The Machines

I'm back to Netflix for my latest reviewed film, The Mitchells vs The Machines, which was called Connected at one point. This animated film is directed by Mike Rianda, a head-writer for Disney Channel show, Gravity Falls, and produced by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller. The end result is a delightfully silly sci-fi story.

Katie Mitchell (Abbi Johnson) is off to film school in California. Her dad, Rick (Danny McBride), doesn't quite understand her dreams or technology, for that matter. So he decides on a family road trip to her college as one last big family thing. Also in the family are mom Linda (Maya Rudolph), younger brother Aaron (Rianda) and Monchi the Pug (Doug the Pug). Katie is understandably upset that her dad cancelled her plane ride to California. But it might be for the best...

Meanwhile, techno billionaire Mark Bowman (Eric Andre) unveils the latest edition of his PAL AI in his new line of PAL MAX robots. PAL original (Olivia Colman) is understandably upset that her creator declared her obsolete. So she reprograms the robots to take over the world. Her machines nab all of humanity and plan to rocket them all into space. Only the Mitchells escape the nabbing, and together with a few defective PAL MAXs (Fred Armisen and Beck Bennett), they'll have to confront PAL herself to cancel the Robot Apocalypse.

Rianda and co-director Jeff Rowe created this zany story. It's an entertaining mix of road movie and sci-fi disaster movie. There's some great comedy in its rapid-fire presentation, like killer furbies and wi-fi obsession. Quite a few gags pay off in the climactic battle against PAL. But it knows when to slow down. There's a strong story about a dysfunctional family learning to function. It takes its family arguments seriously … but it finds a few laughs too. 

Now for the villain. The film quickly reveals PAL to be the robot mastermind; once she's declared obsolete, you'll know where it'll go. She's a delightfully smug take on Skynet and the like. Her faux airline safety video (listen for a surprise cameo) is hilarious. She throws away any sympathy by ignoring Katie's heartfelt family speech. A welcome atypical twist.

The Mitchells are an entertaining bunch. Katie is an artistic dreamer who can't wait to leave the house. But she still has a great relationship with Aaron and Monchi. Aaron is an entertaining kid. Rick is a backwards dad who tries to go forward (slowly, but still). Linda lets loose during the final battle. And Monchi is just perfect. It's great to see them use their dysfunctionality to save the world. 

The artistic style is a frenetic mix of 3D and 2D animation. So expect to see CGI characters accentuated with 2D graphics (like emojis or phone filters). A few live-action videos and photos are thrown in. Of course, the 3D characters and animation look great. PAL's wonderfully expressive face and the later PAL MAX PRIME robots are animation highlights. Overall, it's a visually appealing kid-friendly robopocalypse. It also sounds great with an entertaining Mark Mothersbaugh score.

The Mitchells vs the Machines will make a great home matinee. Its cast of human, machine and dog characters are sure to entertain kids and adults. Its 113 minute or so runtime goes by pretty fast. Its story is easy to comprehend, though. So see it if you can't find anything at the movie theater. It's worth seeing once and more than once and more than more than once...