“The Mitchells Vs. The Machines” is a glorious and heartfelt story of the unlikely family pitted against a phone update turned Skynet-style AI. Writer/directors Michael Rianda and Jeff Rowe (“Gravity Falls”) have answered one of the greatest hypotheticals: what if John Carpenter and “Starship Troopers”-era Paul Verhoeven got the keys to the animation studios responsible for “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse”?
The story begins with a glimpse of the impending A.I event before taking a moment to introduce us to the heart and unlikely heroes of the film, the Mitchells. Katie Mitchell (Abbi Jacobson) is a weird outsider in her town. Katie finds her voice and personality making a series of increasingly inventive and hilarious home movies starring their portly pug Monchi and co-starring her younger, dinosaur obsessed brother Aaron (Michael Rianda).
When she’s successfully accepted into a Californian film school, Katie’s Dad, Rick (Danny McBride) – with begrudging encouragement from Mum, Linda (Maya Rudolph) decides that a final family road trip is the perfect send-off. Meanwhile, in Silicon Valley, Tech-Billionaire-Genius-Dope Mark Bowman (voiced by the terrific Eric André) launches the latest update for his ubiquitous PAL phone/operating system, a literal robotic assistant named PAL MAX – cue the robot-apocalypse.
Rianda and Rowe, like John Carpenter or James Cameron before them, manage to create genuinely authentic characters and family friction that perfectly complements the high concept techno-apocalyptic genre conventions. At its core, it’s about loving your children enough to let them go and embrace their path, even if you can’t guarantee them future security. Two times so far has not been enough to catch all of the in-jokes, references, film geek ephemera and just stunning vocal cameos in the robot propaganda colourfully outlining the demise of the human race.
After “Into the Spider-verse” and now “Mitchells”, Sony Animation has announced themselves as one of the most exciting animation studios around. Sony Animation is creating leaps forward comparable to Disney rotoscope animation tracing physical reality into the character performances in “Snow White” or threading a digital lava wave into the rich 2D cave of wonders escape in “Aladdin”.
Sony Animation, especially in “Mitchells” and “Spider-verse”, have begun to use formal intertextuality to expand the possibilities of the worlds they are rendering on screen. Inter-textuality in cinema has most often been described in how films use formal techniques or direct script/music references to enrich and entangle the themes of the movie we’re viewing with one or many other films – a common Tarantino trick.
From the moment the film begins, we’re passengers in Katie’s vision of the world. The Columbia logo needs explosive re-animation, and bursting from the austere exterior is a bubbly and curve new Lady Liberty. A chorus of scribbled supporter, hand puppets, hearts and rainbows roll out the multi-coloured carpet to those entering the movie.
That’s probably a way to describe the entire undertaking; animation with layers upon layers of additional animation style to suitably overstuff the movie, earning repeat viewings. Colour bedazzles while bodies bounce, bump and tumble through extremely tactile and thoughtful environments. Rianda and Rowe’s vision of the world and its people are refreshingly shapely, sharp and imperfect. The aesthetic resembles Da Vinci’s “grotesque heads” more than Disney’s modern-produced human characters like Moana or Raya.
Colour tone and lighting emphasises and embraces genre influences throughout the story. In the beginnings of “Mitchells,” the family home is enveloped in that brown aura that seemed to typify a 1980s working-class modest movie home. On the road, at the onset of the apocalypse, the brewing storms paired with the vacancy of the sky from air traffic and the lingering smoke feel like that final iconic shot from the finale of “The Terminator” as Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) rides toward the storm.
As we move towards the movie’s neon emblazoned climax, there are notes of “TRON,” “Oblivion”, and “The Matrix” Trilogy. The entire film is underscored by a phenomenal soundtrack with ripping needles drops from Madeon, Grimes, Talking Heads, Sigur Ros and Hotei (in a nod to “Kill Bill” that will not be spoilt in this review).
Abbi Jacobson voices Katie, and she fits so squarely into the buoyant shoes of our heroine. Katie, thankfully, is portrayed as a whole person with regrets (lack of connection with her father), frustrations (perceptions of being held back) and fears (will she connect with her new cohort and what will her absence do to the equilibrium at home).
Danny McBride voices Dad, Rick Mitchell. While McBride is most notable for playing infectiously amoral shit-bags, he imbues Rick with an outmatched sweetness. Maya Rudolph voices Mum, Linda Mitchell. It should be no surprise to anyone that Rudolph can do anything (and really should, in this critic’s opinion). Linda is a kindergarten teacher and exhibits that care and warmth and conveys that implacable quality that makes you empathise with the characters’ desire to please her.
Michael Rianda, the co-writer/director, plays the charming and offbeat younger brother Aaron. He loves dinosaurs so much that he’s systematically going through his town’s phone book one cold call at a time, trying to find someone who shares his jurassic love.
It’s affecting, it’s exciting, it’s ludicrous, it’s witty beyond belief, and it’s just begging to be watched again and again; “The Mitchells vs The Machines” is one of this critic’s favourite movies of the year.
