“The Mitchells vs. The Machines” Review

Starring the titular dysfunctional family, The Mitchells must come together to defeat a robot army that is trying to take over the world.

With the release of “Tom and Jerry” earlier this year, I had almost given up on family media because of how needlessly mindless it was. Now, my hope has been restored thanks to “Raya and the Last Dragon” and especially “The Mitchells vs. The Machines.” Released on Netflix on April 30, the film is the best piece of animation this year and is a purely entertaining and heartfelt film for people of all ages.

Centered on the dysfunctional Mitchell family, the film depicts the family as they embark on a road trip from Michigan to California to grow closer as a family as they take their daughter Katie (voiced by Abbi Jacobson) to her first semester of film school. This trip is essential as Katie and her younger, dinosaur-obsessed brother Aaron (voiced by Mike Rianda) has been feeling alienated from her more naturalistic father Rick (voiced by Danny McBride) and her overprotective mother (voiced by Maya Rudolph). However, when robots begin to take over the world, the Mitchells must come together to save the world and, of course, grow stronger as a family.

Vibrantly animated and with a great deal of quick-pacing, the film is incredibly funny with the perfect combination of physical humor and wordplay with enough recurring jokes to tie it all together. From the first five minutes, I was laughing at the film’s humor and was joyous for its entirety. The comic relief of the film mainly centers on the family dog, an adorably ugly pug named Monchi, and two robots (voiced by Fred Armisen and Beck Bennet) who decide that they like the Mitchells and join them to stop the robot invasion. 

The film’s action is also very tightly paced with an optimistic intensity akin to “Spider-Man: Into The Spiderverse,” which makes sense since Phil Lord and Christopher Miller produced the film. No matter what happens, “The Mitchells vs. The Machines” is engaging throughout with no dull moments.

The film’s director and co-writer Mike Rianda, one of the writers of the animated series “Gravity Falls,” clearly has a deep love for animation and it shines throughout the film. What makes the film so fresh is that it takes a basic concept, the family drama, and injects it with a crazy plotline like robots created by a fictional technology company (*cough*Amazon/Apple/Facebook*cough*) taking over the world because they feel used and underappreciated. This actually leads to some clever commentary about modern technology. 

While the film definitely makes fun of humanity’s obsession with technology, the film’s commentary is much more interesting than a simple “Big Tech Bad” attitude.

Most of these kinds of films would completely slam technology as evil and how it has driven us apart, but instead the film’s villain, a smartphone named PAL (voiced by Olivia Colman), brings up how smartphones and other technology have allowed us to stay connected with people regardless of distance and points out that there is value to technology. Technology has also allowed Katie to write, shoot and edit films which is what drives her as an artist. The problem is when we ignore those around us instead of using our smartphones to connect, which has been pretty important when the past year rendered more personal contact difficult.

But when the film becomes a family drama, the heart behind the story shows the most. While there is a villain in the film, it’s not anyone in this family. All of the Mitchells have different interests and a different frequency which often makes their moments of teamwork messy. However, they care for each other and, when their environment requires them to step up, find that they can do anything including saving the world from a family friendly version of Skynet. 

While the action and humor is awesome, I found myself loving the film the most when these characters talk about their feelings. This is a perfect film for families because everyone can identify with one or more of the main characters. While many family films feel like all they have to do is be bright and colorful enough to sedate two-year-olds and give the parents some peace and quiet, “The Mitchells vs. The Machines” decides to do something of substance which makes it a fantastic piece of animation that should not be dismissed as “kids stuff.”