Movie Review: The Mitchells vs The Machines

 Hey everyone, my name is Anthony and welcome back to my movie review.

Even since i got struck by the virus to this day (as well as stupid people and truckers protesting at Ottawa that im very pissed what i saw, as a innocent Canadian person with support of vaccination for the third time), we were very disappointed and depressed that we never have a chance nor time to see the movies on the big screen, i mean the last time i ever watched in theater is Pixar's Onward before my nuclear meltdown. Despite all the stupidity and madness we've been dealing to this day, we still got a chance and time to watch some movies, on streams and digital downloads. With one film that i found for my curiosity to give it a shot, after came out last year (Yup, another one, my friend).

"The Mitchells vs The Machines" is a 2021 sci-fi comedy film that was written/directed by mike Rianda, produced by Phil Lord, Christopher Miller (the memorable filmmaking duo) and Kurt Albrech, and co-written by Jeff Rowe.

This might be interesting thing for my review, cause this is the fist time i review a movie came from Netflix. Before you ask, no, i never subscribed anymore, i subscribed once in a month since i think 2018 to see the shows like Aggretsuko (i watched the first season and i had a great time that i loved the show) and Twelve Forever (a potential show to major disappointment...!), even though this was before Netflix becoming a streaming service that its going down from hill with killing off shows way too early and subscription price raised up unfairly (No wonder why im still subscribing Disney+).

Anyway, the movie's idea came from Mike Rianda after working on the first season of "Gravity Falls", he had a pitching idea to Sony Pictures Animation based on his childhood trip with his experience of his family and robots, and he got approved along with the help of Phil Lord and Chris Miller, though before we have our current title, it was originally to be called "Connected", but one the virus hit us hard and Rianda isn't a huge fan of the alternative name, not only it changed by to "The Mitchells vs. The Machines", but Sony sold the movie on Netflix, which sadly, i never get a change to subscribing back based on either my job or other movies im reviewing.

Of course by the time the film was released, it was surprisingly well-received for the animation style with quality, fun voice acting, the action moments and several more about it. Though i was about to know about the box-office, but it was available free to watch on Netflix, but this movie received 53 million households since its first released. I was happy to hear, but hesitant to never able to watch from DVD, Blu-Ray or digitally, thankfully, Sony did released this film in home media, which im happy i got the physical copy from Walmart.

So, with all that said, will the family trip will be fun to go, or is trip feels like we're taking to the space of death?

Well, lets find out.

The Story

For a movie about family trip and facing against the machines, its a quite of unique story with a fun execution.

The movie begins at the chaos, but before that, we introducing our main Michell named Katie who's an aspired filmmaker that she likes to making mini movies ever since her childhood and she's ready for her film school at California, however, her father Rick, felt that her filmmaking is too much that it ruined the family that she wants to stop and asking for family trip (which is due to the fact that he has Technophobic, typical family problem). And after a fight that he ruined her laptop, Rick tries to cheer her up to having a family road trip to cross-country in order to build her college up, which it didn't help her that much. Meanwhile, the scientist entrepreneur named Dr. Mark Bowman who, after invented the AI PAL from "PAL Labs", tries to making a new AI to replacing virtual assistance to an actual assistant, a Robot assistant to be precise, however, his AI PAL is angry for replacement that she takes control the robots for rampage, its not just rampage, but also planning to wiping out humans to outer space! As a result, the Mitchells trip ended up gone wrong when the robots are going rampage to destroy the humanities, its up to Katie and her family to survive and stop the evil threat from PAL.

This movie may sounds like a generic humans vs the machines, but the execution may sounds like impressive and somehow related, cause as we all know, we all love technology from making videos, social medias and video chats, it may sounds like fun, but sometimes, even we love AI assistant, we seems to forget it to moving something new, even though the machines wants us back whether we like to bring back or not. Even though sometimes this movie is like if the late Stephen Hawking has a concern prediction that if we push too far at AI, they'll turning against us, it may sounds like exaggeration, but that was his own prediction before he passed away (R.I.P., Hawking...), though maybe he had a good point, cause we're like zombies, for being over distracted from technologies like phones laptop and such in order to get attention, though sometimes we always want take these to our level for our career, especially for Katie when it comes to her filmmaking experience. Like i said, the plot of humans vs machines has been done before, but at least the execution is pretty good and related how we've been.

Of course, another plot element of this movie is the father and kid relationship, mainly the relation between Katie and Rick with aside of aforementioned technology, Rick just wants to bring back to the good'ol days when he and his family use to love to going on trip with cross-country and others before the rise of advanced technology with chaos. but you know what this reminds me of? It reminds of Sony's old animated movie "Cloudy with a chance of Meatballs", it has a same plot and little bit similar style of presentation, though aside this movie's presentation is a lot more fun, flashy and action impact than Cloudy (which il get to that later), the father and kid relationship are somewhat the same, but at least this subplot has its focus while Cloudy has probably had a lackluster. This movie's subplot is also related how before we got too distracted on screens, we always just want to go back to remain positive since past without bickering all together for obvious reasons, since Katie loves to focus on his laptop and his phone for his friends and his filmmaking, while his father is struggling to stay together since he loves nature over than technology (again, based on his technophic), even though they did trying to get along to take a break from phones/laptop.

As for the humor of this movie, well, it surprisingly funny, sure if could be a bit annoying with some same jokes, but at least the jokes are not immature as Cloudy or even Hotel Transylvania, this joke is pretty funny with all the its fast-past style, flashy and unique level, which i actually had a good laugh for watching it.

Though the movie is nothing new for a typical plot of family trip gone wrong, human vs machines and father and kid relation, but its the execution has done right for its heart, relatable commentary and its funny.

The Animation

At first, when i saw the trailer and poster, i was a bit hesitant to be another questionable design style of Cloudy or Hotel Transylvania, but surprisingly, they went all in on same fashion as Spider-Man into the Spider-Verse, sorta.

For the backgrounds, it looks from nice looking to WOW! For starter, the background of normal like the village, the wild and others looks pretty cool in a 2D style like (which il get to that later), even though they may look like nothing new, but its nicely done for the quality's execution. But once we jump to PAL Labs, Boy, it looks soo damn cool, i like the way it presented to look something straight out of 80s based on vaporwave style, its flashy, its colorful and i think i agree with Mitchells, it looks and feels like the covers of Journey.

As for the designs and animation, they look pretty good as always in once again, in different style. For the humans like Mitchells, they were meant to be 2D style based on the concept arts, but since we jumped into 3D works as always, they made in 2D style 3D. I have to say, some they look a bit exaggerating, but they look pretty nice what they appeared, as well with a nice work of animation they make them look more smooth and a bit realistic. And as for PAL and the robots, they went in 3D style (and once again, 2D like from the AI PAL). For the robots, even though they look pretty generic, but i gott say, i like the idea of robots in voice-command with a bit of touch-screen (or "Touch-Face"?? Sorry...), even though they look not as creative, but at least some execution is pretty good. And we have AI PAL, who's obviously done with digital 2D on a simple face, which i find it pretty cute, even if she's way too cute to be threatening.

And as for the effects, with the help of Sony Pictures Imageworks, they took the same style and technique from Spider-Man into the Spider-Verse, and i have to say, they did a pretty good work for the style, but more flashy and colorful like the action scenes and even robot's blast to kidnapping humans to wiping out of humanity. Of course, the most often use of effect is "Katie-Vision", which is basically, even though Katie is the main protagonist, noticing plenty of effects from Katie with silly hand-drawn like style, again, rather exaggerated, but on this movie with Katie, im getting used to it, cause i like craftsmanship from Sony.

While it may not as creative, but its the execution of the animation for its impressive work of effects, the movements and even combination style of its design.

The Characters

For a chaotic journey of family trip, we expecting the characters will be memorable? Well, despite the dysfunctional parts, they're rather pretty good too, for the most part.

Lets starts with the first Mitchell, Katie (voiced by Abbi Jacobson), who's a quirky aspired filmmaker who likes to spend times to filming her contents for her college plan, despite she likes to going on her own style than being with her family. I find her quite of fascinating protagonist that despite being forced to be in family trip, she always having a dream of filmmaking for the her college and even her friends on online (kinda like we doing this in real life, right?), though she could be a struggling at the times from either being selfish for her projects so much or not interested of be careful from her father. Despite her flaws, i find her pretty good and somewhat relatable how we always like to be a filmmaker, despite we could be too much into the projects. And Abbi did a nice work of her role.

Speaking of which, we have Rick (voiced by Danny McBride), the father of the Mitchells who's having a hard time to be connected to his family members due to the fact he has a hatred of distraction from technology caring of nature. At first, i assumed he's gonna be one of those "love to hate character", but it turned out he's a difficulty father that he just wants to be connected together since their good'ol days instead of focus too much of screens and technology stuff, especially to dealing with his daughter Katie. He's another fascinating and related character, its always not easy to be together for family without making dysfunctional moments, and Danny also did a nice and fun work of his role.

The third member of the Mitchells is Linda (voiced by Maya Rudolph), the mother who likes to motivating her family members by optimism in order to, like Rick, stay together. Even though she's more of a sidekick in the movie, but she does have a chance to shine in a very interesting level, though i won't give more detail about her in the later part on this film, but Linda also did a good work of her role.

And we have Aaron (strangely voiced by Mike Rianda himself), a young brother of the Mitchells that unlike Katie, he's obsessed with dinosaurs, especially he likes to have knowledge about dinosaurs. Typical boy, obsessed with dinosaurs so much, otherwise if Katie let him watch either "Jurassic" Park or "We're Back", Aaron's mind will explode. All joke aside, he's also more of a sidekick to Katie, despite he had some humor moments that he's trying to be with Abbey Posey, but ended up embarrassed himself for his attempt of confession. I find him not bad, even if the voice of Aaron didn't fit from the film director Mike in my opinion.

And we have the main antagonist in the movie, PAL (voiced by Olivia Colman), the virtual assistant going rogue after being thrown out from replacement by robot assistant by becoming a puppet master at robots in attempt to wiping out humanity. Though sorta generic, but an AI assistant becoming a villain for taking over Earth? That might be the most over-the-top idea for main villain and of course, Olivia sold her performance for her ruthless and rogue of PAL, then again, probably reference from the late Hawking for his concern of AI going rogue.

As for the rest of the characters, they have some fascinating roles, but most of them are nothing add for plot purpose or not.

There's Eric and Deborahbot 5000 (voiced by Beck Bennett and Fred Armisen), the broken robots that they work with the Mitchells as a comedic protectors, which i gotta say, its nice to have two robots being turned away from PAL, Dr. Mark Bowman (voiced by the most Meme'd actor/comedian, Eric André) who's the scientist and technology entrepreneur of PAL labs for inventing virtual and robot assistant before ended making his AI PAL going rogue at humanity (So, blame Dr. Mark creating his monstrous AI??) and the Posey family, who're the neighbors of the Mitchells.

Despite some of them have flaws, but at least the characters are enjoyable to get through.

And now for my final opinion of this film

Overall, The Mitchells vs The Machines is a pretty fun movie from Netflix (then again, i bought this movie on DVD), while the story may not as creative, but its the execution has done well for relatable elements, characters are good to memorable, funny humors and of course, a very impressive work of animation in of course, same fashion of Spider-Man into the Spider-Verse.

Whether you watch on Netflix or physical medias, this is the film that you should definitely check it out either your friends or heck even a family. If i wanna do the redo of my top list of movies in 2021, even though it has some flaws, it would certainly put it around on top 5, not in a podium.

For my rating, im giving it an 8.5/10, the movie is close to earning my reward, but its still a fun movie.

So this ends of my movie review, if you guys have your opinion or any suggestions, let me know at comment bellow and support me on https://ko-fi.com/blackevil.

Thanks for reading, and im Anthony, signing out.