Ani-May-tion: The Mitchells vs. The Machines (Dir. Mike Rianda, 1h 53m, 2021)

Phil Lord and Chris Miller may not be household names on the level that, for example, Hayao Miyazaki or Brad Bird enjoy, but by this point, some three decades into their career, they have become something of a seal of quality. This might have something to do with their nigh-impeccable track record, starting out as the creators of cult animated series Clone High, before swapping television for theatrical animation, in the equally cult Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, before 2014's The Lego Movie catapaulted them into popularity, turning what could have been a shameless cash-in into perhaps the greatest animated feature never to be nominated for an Oscar.

Since then as producers, they've only further pushed the envelope of animation, alongside Sony Pictures Animation. The latter, previously an also-ran with the exception of the charming 1-2 with Aardman, Arthur Christmas and The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists! and Genndy Tartakovsky's charming, but increasingly creaky Hotel Transylvania, proceeded to sideline pretty much the entire market in 2018 with the still-absolutely-jawdropping Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Needless to say, with the film picking up the first non-Disney/Pixar Oscar in 7 years, (against Brad Bird, no less!), and with two sequels now rolling into view, so Sony Pictures Animation seem destined to be a major player in this wonderful world of animation going forward.

There's just one problem; that team may have already made a film ever better than Spider-Verse. The Mitchells vs. The Machines is that film, a smartly funny, whip-crack sharp, and gloriously told story, told by their creative misfit daughter, about a dysfunctional family saving the world from a robot uprising that has rendered the rest of humanity the captive of a malignant AI, in a film that magnicently uses the medium of animation to its advantage in telling its story, not merely in the fast-paced, beautifully rendered way that Sony have adopted so well following the success of Spider-Man, that-whisper it-animation can go for cartoonish and exaggerated over the constant search for realism, but ingrained-from its mallebility in changing media to suit the story, to its very narrative-in the very fabric of the film.

We begin in media res,with an introduction to our heroes; Katie (voiced by Abbi Jacobson), a nerdy filmmaker off to college, her father, Rick (Danny McBride), a practical if technophobic figure, and her mother, Linda (Maya Rudolph), whose keeping up with her neighbours has taken on an almost ludicrous level, together with dinosaur obsessive (and autistic coded) brother, Aaron (Mike Riand), and the family dog, the adorable, if fugly, Monchi (voiced by, uh, Doug the Pug). From the outset, the film nails two things perfectly. First, its humour, which takes the form of often fast-paced observational humour (not least because the robots, largely voiced by SNL alumni Beck Bennett become an Greek Chorus to the film's action), with the robots commenting on the car that proceeds to mow them down, and the frenetic back and forth between Mitchell family members as they careen through this opening setpiece.

Secondly, it perfectly encapsulates the feel of the film to come; our heroes aren't the organised team of the usual armageddon-action-movie but a very average and dysfunctional family-coffee is spilt across the car and the gruff but charming father figure, Aaron and Katie are huddled in the back, the car is battered, festooned with cringe-inducing bumper-stickers, and the impressive stunt that opens the film feels more like an accident rather than a moment of badassery. The emphasis is clear-the Mitchells are simply the average suburban dysfunctional family-some CGI descendants of the Griswolds-now thrust into heroism. It's at this point that the film, via Katie's narration, jumps back a few days to before this mad roadtrip across a robot-enslaved American took place, and it's here that the film's true concept comes into place. This is a film about imperfection.

It's in these flashbacks that we start to see underneath the mere dysfunctional veneer; Katie may be a misfit but, as college approaches, so her creativity and her film-making has won her an audience of admirers that she will soon be part of. Her relationship with her father and mother is neither perfect, nor sunken into dysfunctionality. No relationship, even in this early part of the film, is perfect-practically every scene prior to the arrival of the robot uprising at the horrifyingly off-model dinosaur themed diner is some form of compromise one way or the other between family members. The roadtrip itself is one, between Katie's attempts to get to college in order to meet her new friends, and Rick's reluctance to let his daughter go, and his fear of her failing to fulfil herself creatively. That this isn't played purely for laughs, that we see Katie's annoyance and anger, is where the film starts to take steps away from the typical comic roadtrip movie.

This isn't to say that the early sections of the film don't pack in laughs; we see them, in the superbly done montage that mixes travelogue shot by Katie with smartly done vignettes, hitch-hike up mountain trails, throw up barely sanitary burgers, and see the sights along the way. Without these little moments of character building, of fleshing out the Mitchells as a group of characters, simply put, the film wouldn't succeed when it finally crashes off the beaten track of the road movie, and into the realm of the apocalyptical. This, in itself, is a smartly done moment, the omnipresent PAL (a scene-stealing Olivia Colman) AI thrown aside by its creator (voiced by Eric Andre), only to wreak her revenge by taking control of the next generation of AI. Slighted by her creator, she writes humanity off as incapable of being able to live together, and, and once consigning (almost all of) humanity to perpetual incarceration with only free Wi-Fi and the internet, slowly reveals her plot to jettison the entire species into space.

Enter the film's greatest balancing act, the moment where it most understands the compromise at its centre; not just that of being at once an action movie, with the beats of the the survival horror, as they slowly make their way to Los Angeles and the HQ where PAL continues to plot and scheme, and the comedy, but in its other balancing act between the technophobic, the Luddite, and the embracing of technology and all it can give us. In other films, we see this shift too far in one direction or the other, where grumbling technophobes splutter through tech-talk, or where humanity's reliance on technology is their undoing.. Nowhere is this seen better than in the group's first attempts to upload the kill-code to defeat PAL. With a duo of damaged robots in tow, so our quintet sneak into an abandoned mall, only to find themselves soon surrounded by huge numbers of PAL-enabled devices, and have to band together to fend off the encroaching forces, including a colossal, and genuinely frightening, giant Furby, in a masterfully paced sequence that nimbly jumps between action and comedy at the drop of a hat.

This breakneck brevity, though, never undermines the film's more emotional moments; the duo of robots, Deborah-bot 5000 and, er, Eric, seamlessly integrate into the family's dynamics, becoming curious surrogate sons attempting to play along as being family members, even as they cheerily reel off exactly how doomed humanity is to PAL's machinations, and at points feel like almost irreplaceable members of the family, even after an unexpected turn to the dark side. At this film's heart though, is that spirit of compromise-it ultimately powers the Mitchells through their adventure, from instigating decision by Rick for one last road-trip to the decision to take to the road to save the world.

It is also, for a film that merrily steps outside the normal family, where its key tension comes from, and when PAL finally drives a wedge between the Mitchells, it is down to a breakdown in that compromise that comes with all the emotional weight and pathos that it possibly could have, that mutual understanding between father and daughter tested to the limit. That this comes with perhaps the film's most emotional beat, as we, together with Kate, begin to slowly understand the significance of a treasured childhood toy, and its role in how Rick gave up his ambitions for his family, is some of the best writing for animation outside of the modern glut of quality series.

It is as the film enters its final act, though, that the film truly doubles down upon that theme of compromise, rather than unity in order to save the world. Far from trying to pool together their talents into an average, much in the same way that Brad Bird's The Incredibles did for the superhero, so Mitchells Vs The Machines does for the post-apocalyptic picture, in making their victory down to their teamwork. It's too good, too clever and too fast-paced a finale to spoil. It is a finale built on great character writing, and development. From the siblings bouncing off each other to Monchi's bizarre power to destroy robots via face recognition, to Linda's at points blood-curdling fury at her family being held captive, to Rick finally seeing the value of his daughter's work, and throwing all of his energy into bridging that gap between them, so the day is won, PAL is defeated, and the world returns to normal. We see Kate finally start college, find her people, and a girlfriend, and her people, not as an escape from her family, as she initially framed it, but as the next step of her life, with her family supporting her artistic endeavours the whole way.

That The Mitchells vs the Machines tells a well-wrought story of family against the odds, where the comedic and dramatic sensibilities of the film are masterfully animated and acted, is undeniable. But what animation does, as it does at its very best, is to transform this film into a road movie with scrapbook indie movie sensibilities, that brims with as many clever and innovative visual ideas as its smartly-written, emotionally resonant script. Whilst Spider-Verse may hold the plaudits, The Mitchells and the Machines may well be the crowning achievement of Lord and Miller's stint at Sony, in a superbly told tale of a dysfunctional but loving family coming together in an adventure of finding the common-ground between each other, to save the world.

Rating: Must See

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