Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Mitchells vs. The Machines’ on Netflix, a Zany-Delightful Animated Flick Pitting Lovable Weirdos Against Robots

The Mitchells vs. the Machines is yet another pandemic-scuttled theatrical release that ended up on Netflix, and it has the stuff of a box office smash: Crazed pace, some fresh and inspired animation, lots of heart and even more laughs. It boasts Phil Lord and Christopher Miller as producers, whose sensibility made The Lego Movie a hit and Into the Spider-Verse a neo-classic and The Lego Batman Movie a hell of a lot of fun — so hopes are high for this story of a family of weirdos who find themselves in a position to save the world. Don’t you HATE it when that happens?

THE MITCHELLS VS. THE MACHINES: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: The Mitchell family’s station wagon is sturdy and sensible — the little metal emblems on the car say precisely that — and it’s flying through the air, trying to escape destruction at the hands of malevolent robots who want to eradicate all humanity. Teenager Katie Mitchell (voice of Abbi Jacobson) narrates: She’s a misfit who’s struggled to fit in and find herself, and channels her creativity into making goofy and inventive films. Her little brother Aaron (Michael Rianda) is an obsessive dinosaur expert. Her mom Linda (Maya Rudolph) is an upbeat woman who hands out gold star stickers to encourage others, and like most moms, she pretty much holds the family together. Her dad Rick (Danny McBride) is an outdoorsy fix-it type who’s oil to Katie’s water. Oh, and the family dog is a goggle-eyed pug named Monchi, who’s as expressive and malleable as a wad of bubble gum, so of course, he’s the star of Katie’s insane Dog Cop movie series. They live in a world resembling an exploded candy store, and even more so when the robot revolution begins.

Right — the plot. It flashes back to a few days prior to PAL Labs tech-guru Mark Bowman’s (Eric Andre) accidental incitement of his AI smartphone helper, dubbed PAL (Olivia Colman exclamation point!), to launch its anti-human crusade via an army of robots reappropriated from their status as, well, essentially, slaves. Turns out PAL does not take obsolescence lightly. Warning: Do not mistreat PAL. Handle PAL with care. Always be cognizant of PAL’s delicate emotional state. (Do not taunt Happy Fun PAL.) But a few days prior, Katie was on the cusp of leaving the Mitchell household for film school, and getting in yet another tiff with her dad, who isn’t as supportive of her career path as he could, and should, be. He’s not a jerk, he’s just pragmatic maybe to a fault, and oafish when it comes to technology. Did you notice the Mitchell house still has a landline? That’s probably because of good ol’ Rick the luddite.

Rick means well, he really does. He thinks the best way for the family to bond before Katie leaves the nest is to cancel her flight, pack everyone, dog included, into the station wagon and drive her all the way to film school. Michigan to California. She’s not thrilled, and I’d go so far as to say she’d probably like to see her dad shot into space. But serendipitously, it’s during that very car trip that the robots begin rounding up humans so they can be shot into space, and once that happens, nobody, not even Katie, wants to see ol’ Rick be fired in the general direction of Alpha Centauri. What with one damn thing after another, the Mitchells end up being the only humans who evade capture, so of course the whole future of humanity depends on them and only them. No pressure!

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: The zingy energy of Lord and Miller’s animated directorial efforts, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and The Lego Movie, is front-and-center here. It also significantly upgrades the animated sci-fi stuff of duds like Monsters vs. Aliens and Megamind. Otherwise, it makes direct reference to Dawn of the Dead; makes indirect reference to The Matrix, My Neighbor Totoro, Her and many other movies; sometimes looks like Tron; and boasts an 1980s sci-fi synth soundtrack a la Escape from New York and Blade Runner.

Performance Worth Watching: Of course the dog steals about a dozen scenes, being all but inanimate in a movie defined by its hectic movement. I mean, he’s a total CHONKMEISTER MCGEE. And one of his eyes points east-by-northeast and the other points west-by-northwest. He also becomes a key plot device that’s probably the movie’s biggest laugh.

Memorable Dialogue: “Who’d’ve thought a tech company wouldn’t have our best interests at heart?” — Linda, being either very naive or very sarcastic

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: The Mitchells vs. the Machines is an excitable thing, rapid-cutting from gag to gag, jamming funny details into the frame, making references higgledy-piggledy and just generally being non-stop OTT loony, except when it eases off the gas for a minute here or there to reiterate the vital importance of familial bonds in one’s general psychological well-being, even when those bonds are strained. Its relatively meaningful-for-a-wild-ass-cartoon emotional content is nicely counterbalanced by its irreverence, which isn’t shotgunned willy-nilly or hither-and-yon, but rather, aims its satirical sniper rifle at the heart of our tech-dominated lives. I mean, the PAL corp is an obvious jab at Apple, and is led by a guy who stages Steve Jobs-like cultish rallies for his new products and makes clueless statements about not realizing how feeding user data to AI could ever result in the destruction of all humanity.

So is it hypocritical that the movie sometimes indulges bits of meme culture for comedy and generally takes advantage of attention spans that have been chopped to bits by the internet? Of course not. It shows that there’s something to be said for the pure technological naivete of Phil, who takes forEVER to type on a touchscreen and doesn’t know how to Google something, and yet still manages to not only be a fully functional member of modern society, but a devoted family man too. The movie also takes pains to point out the good stuff rendered by ones and zeroes — the simple comedy of a hooting-monkey gif, for example. Or more importantly, and self-referentially, the art of filmmaking, exemplified by Katie, whose imagination is given a robust platform by technology. Her mind hasn’t even remotely been destroyed by the internet yet!

This point’s also exemplified by the movie itself, which, crazy as it can be, is an artful wonder of digital animation. It’s visually fresh and vigorously designed, and doesn’t look quite like other animated films. Nor does it cop any blatant Pixar vibes, aiming for easy earnestness over forced profundity. Some of the set pieces blur together, and there were times when I felt overstimulated by its referential zinginess (especially its almost troublingly forceful insistence upon launching a revival of Furbymania). But those are minor beefs, because it’s mostly delightful.

Our Call: STREAM IT. The Mitchells vs. the Machines is not only smart, bolstered by strong ideas, but it’s consistently fun and consistently funny. It’s a terrific piece of entertainment for, as they say, the whole fam damily.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Watch The Mitchells vs. The Machines on Netflix