The Mitchells vs. the Machines
Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg gets a worse drubbing in a new kids' movie than he recently received from Senators on Capitol Hill. That's probably because the filmmakers behind “The Mitchells vs the Machines” – in contention for a best animated-feature Oscar – are way hipper to the dangers of technology than our elected leaders, who have never been known as the brightest bulbs in the socket.
Mark (voiced by Eric André) doesn't have a last name in the movie, and his tech empire is branded with the friendly sounding name PAL Industries. But the resemblance to mastermind behind FB is hard to miss: the trademark hoodie and rah-rah auditorium launches for his latest products are all just camouflage for his greed, and his little boy's wish that creating technologically enhanced “Friends” can compensate for his sad inability to interact with actual humans.
The film's DVD arrival at my door just as Zuckerberg was announcing Facebook 2.0 – otherwise known as Meta – was sheer coincidence. Mr. Facebook is hoping the name change will distract from all the wreckage he has wrought up to this point – from shattering teenage girls' self esteem, through tilting presidential elections, to poisoning millions of minds to the point they no longer know what truth means.
The competing realities created by Silicon Valley under the heading social media might be better described as “story wars.” Unfortunately, last time I looked, my side was losing.
We can only hope that “The Mitchells vs the Machines” premise – that PAL Industries' new artificial-intelligence robots designed to be their owners' best friends, instead go rogue and turn into an army bent on world domination – isn't prophetic, too.
Turns out the only thing that can save humanity from these flying and marching brigades of 'bots is the Mitchells. They are your standard dysfunctional American family typical of most comedies targeted at kid audiences anymore. There's doofus dad Rick (Danny McBride) at odds with his aspiring filmmaker daughter Katie (Abbi Jacobson). Director-co-writer Michael Rianda provides the voice of dinosaur-obsessed little brother Aaron, and versatile Maya Rudolph is along as all-forgiving Mom, with the heart of gold camouflaging her hidden superpowers.
John Legend, Chrissy Teigen, Fred Armisen, Conan O'Brien and Olivia Colman lend their voices to the animated cast.
College-bound Katie is the protagonist, and her movies within the movie provide most of its visual style, heavy on cartoony asides and little in-jokes around the edges of the busy screen. While the action starts in the Mitchell household and then embarks on a family road trip, it goes into overdrive with the arrival of the robots intent on putting all the humans into little boxes. Literally.
The sci-fi action is sometimes a little hard to follow for audience members of a certain age … the age of Katie's parents and older, actually. My age. But it makes up for its whiz-bang pacing with a smart script that is both clever and tender enough to engage family audience members of all ages.
The writing lobs witty salvos at the greedy techo barons who have infected us all with a serious case of screen addiction, and even has home appliances joining the enemy forces by its climax. But underneath is faith in the unbreakable strength of family love that makes “The Mitchells vs the Machines” as unexpectedly touching as it is funny.
That love looks like our best secret weapon if we stand a chance in our own wars with the Machines.
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