I can’t believe that The Mitchells vs. the Machines is produced by the same company that made Angry Birds and The Emoji Movie. For so long Sony Pictures Animation was about the least exciting of the major American animation hubs. It wasn’t quite as loud or obnoxious as Illumination or latter-stage DreamWorks, but it was pretty unimpressive, with only the Hotel Transylvania movies being particularly good. But then Into the Spider-Verse happened and it looks like that movies’ wide acclaim (not to mention its’ rare non-Disney Oscar win) had an effect. And the primary thing it appears to have taught Sony was to keep Phil Lord and Christopher Miller around -because they have a magic touch, even on projects they’re only producing.
That touch is deeply felt on The Mitchells vs. the Machines, which has a lot of that same wild energy the pair brought to The Lego Movie, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, or even Clone High. However the film more belongs to director Mike Rianda and his writing partner Jeff Rowe, formerly writers and creative directors on Disney’s Gravity Falls, one of the most intrepid kids’ shows of the last decade. And fans of Gravity Falls will detect a lot of that shows’ humour and spirit -though transposed onto the same stylized depth of animation, that seems to straddle CGI and traditional techniques, as Into the Spider-Verse -albeit designed more to comedic sensibilities.
What I’m saying is there are a lot of different rivers of animation talent running into the pool of this movie, and they all come together beautifully; beautifully, and chaotically, as The Mitchells vs. the Machines takes on the rote idea of our over-dependence on technology and the old robot uprising story, and reinvents it in increasingly deranged and ecstatically enjoyable ways. And it’s also a lovely movie about the importance of family in the margins of that.
The premise is nothing all that special: teenage Katie Mitchell (Abbi Jacobson) is a mildly obsessive aspiring filmmaker often at odds with her survivalist technophobe father Rick (Danny McBride), who sees the chance to bond through a family road trip to Katie’s college in California that just happens to coincide with a worldwide uprising of A.I. On paper it doesn’t sound like all that compelling an idea, perhaps even one that’s a bit dated by 2021. Rianda and Rowe, and Lord and Miller, and everyone working on this film though are determined to prove otherwise; to take these base ideas and run with them as far as possible, their efforts paying off in just how fun and resonant so much of the movie is.
The Mitchells vs. the Machines might be the funniest movie in years. A part of this is due to the high pace, which like an old Zucker Brothers film, pelts you with as many jokes as it can in such rapid succession that you have barely time to register some of the more subtle ones. Yet unlike a Zucker Brothers film it doesn’t do so at the expense of story or theme, and just about every one of the jokes lands. And they’re all different kinds of jokes too, drawing from visual gags, wordplay, and a whole lot of slapstick, to absurdism, cutaway, and even surreal comedy. Perhaps most importantly, while the plot may have a slight anti-tech stance, it’s not coming from a shallow boomer railing against modern tech dependence, but demonstrates a deep and cutting familiarity with internet culture, working things such as meme humour and shitposting into the fabric of the films’ sense of humour.
This is because so much of the movie is filtered through the lens of Katie, a child of the internet and also someone with a keen eye for visual storytelling, having made a bunch of crazy low-budget short films for YouTube starring the family dog Monchi (“voiced” by and clearly based on Doug the Pug). And the filmmakers express this inventively through emotional states that figure in literal symbols around her to that affect (much like the motion lines, sound balloons, and exclamatory squiggles of Into the Spider-Verse) or moments of excitement characterized by freeze frame backgrounds of inane imagery suitable to the context. It’s all so unique to the way Katie sees the world, allowing the animation to develop her character and the animators to do some extraordinary things with a seemingly limitless visual language.
And as is expected by this freedom, the animation is incredible, often just as enticing as Into the Spider-Verse, but with its own brilliant touches to the character designs and flexible world. The big and bold expressiveness of the characters, particularly with regards to their eyes and mouths accentuates so much of the comedy, but it can also be translated to great effect in the softer moments. And the Mitchells’ distinctness within their world allows for visual clarity in the most high-octane sequences. It’s animation designed for ridiculous comedy that is actually complimented by that comedy itself. But there’s a real prettiness too to how lively it all is, how freewheeling and spontaneous and erratic its’ “doodly” (to quote a friend who is an animator) energy is. And perhaps that too comes from its’ inherited marriage of form, that unique hybrid look of its texture that might be the greatest stylistic choice in CG animation of the last several years.
But what makes the movie more than an impressive picture show is that as alluded to, it is genuinely invested in making the most of its premise. The storytelling is great, multiple mini-arcs coming back in satisfying if predictable ways. The climax maybe overdoes one running gag that has become less funny by that point in the film, but it makes up with a lot of fun action. The through-line though, the relationship between Katie and Rick, is the most endearing -as you might expect it to be, but even then it really pulls out all the right stops in making you care about this unconventional father-daughter bond. Both characters are incredibly funny in their own ways as they play off of tropes and banter cleverly through distinct personalities that come out of the sharp dialogue and strong voice acting. For as much as they conform to certain character types, they really are quite different from any other version of the stubborn traditionalist patriarch or the quirky imaginative teenage girl that we’ve seen in other movies. Considerate mother Linda (Maya Rudolph) and dinosaur-obsessed younger son Aaron (Rianda) are not neglected by this, each with their own minor stories and eccentricities that contribute to the plot and the family’s necessary dysfunction. The Mitchells are a delightfully weird family: outrageous, but with some grains of truth in their make-up. They compliment each other immensely, and by the end especially, are so very lovable as a unit.
This is without even mentioning the movies’ great satire of the Silicon Valley tech industry, or its’ villain: a vengeful smartphone voiced by Olivia Colman in a rather nice return to her roots in comedy (Eric Andre is her tech-bro developer); or even a pair of defunct robots who become allies of the Mitchells. It’s all so good and all so funny! The Mitchells vs. the Machines is that rare thing in major studio animation: an original film in just about all respects that surpasses every expectation one might have of it and truly plays around with its’ form -in so doing, pushing the goalposts ever so slightly for other animated films, even ones from more prestige studios. As for Sony, they’re clearly onto something great here, and I hope they keep allowing creatives like Rianda and Rowe, and indeed Lord and Miller, to do what they like. We could all do for more movies like The Mitchells vs. the Machines.
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