Les Mitchell contre les machines (The Mitchells vs. the Machines)

Our society is constantly evolving technologically and we tend to disconnect from real life to find new pleasures rooted in the use to the point of overdose of our computers, game consoles, cell phones and other digital tablets. While all over the world restaurants are either still closed or have to respect strong measures to avoid a rebound of the pandemic linked to covid 19, while cinemas are still closed and are starting to reopen in some states in the United States, streaming platforms like Netflix seem to be the only reliable alternative to offer us to discover movies that were meant to be released in cinemas but that unfortunately have to be satisfied with a direct release in SVOD or VOD Certainly the April 30th release of the animated film The Mitchells vs. the Machines directed by Mike Rianda on a script he co-wrote with Jeff Rowe and produced by Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, Kurt Albrecht is certainly one of the events of this year.

While The Walt Disney Company offers us great animated films that seem to come out of the same mold and thus ensure them a worldwide success, other studios such as Sony Pictures Animation are redoubling their efforts and ideas to go the distance and above all to find strong and efficient concepts. We suspected that after Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009), Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 (2013) and Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse (2018), Sony Animations in partnership with producers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller were going to do it again and bring us another great animated film and this is totally the case with The Mitchells vs. the Machines).

The Mitchells vs. the Machines is a perfect mix of road movie, science fiction and social satire with a story that not only benefits from excellent animation but also from a script full of ideas and dialogues that will become cult. What better idea to point out the drifts of a society addicted to new technologies than to break up the family microcosm and make the adults' generation confront their children's generation. We discover the young Katie Mitchell, a geek passionate about cinema to the point of making multiple short films and whose parents worry that they don't understand her. Before leaving for her first year of boarding school, her parents decide to take a road trip with her, her younger brother and her beloved dog. What looks to be a great trip takes a very special turn when the world's electronic devices come to life, organize an uprising and box up all humans in order to dominate the earth. With the help of two robots, the Mitchell family must unite to save the planet from the new technological revolution.

For his first film, the director and writer Mike Rianda not only imposes himself as one of the best but above all succeeds where other studios seem to be prisoners of their own conformism to dynamize the animated film and to propose two readings, one as intelligent as the other, in order to captivate a childish but also an adult audience by making the nostalgia of the toys of our childhood (special mention to Furby) work at full speed. The result is an animated film that is full of energy and that perfectly knows how to propose a criticism of our current society and to target Apple for its presentation panels of new products intended to hold the attention of the whole world. By wanting to give importance to artificial intelligence, wouldn't man sign his own end? Such is the postulate perfectly put in scene in The Mitchells vs. the Machines which succeeds in mixing different themes and in proposing us an American family not so far from The Simpsons and other Griffins.

The permanent inventiveness seems to be at the center of this film which does not hesitate to use some youtube extracts to make not very flattering comparisons on some main characters of this film. In the same way, we feel a perpetual will to get out of the too neutral Hollywood models to not hesitate to break the numerous preconceived ideas on youth, on the communication between parents and children and especially on the explosion of the family cocoon. The Mitchells vs. the Machines is a true masterpiece of animation that rivals the recent animated productions of The Walt Disney. We now hope to find this family in other adventures as this film is the perfect remedy to make us forget this worldwide pandemic linked to covid for almost two hours.

The Mitchells vs. the Machines
A film by Mike Rianda
Produced by Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, Kurt Albrecht
Written by Mike Rianda, Jeff Rowe
Starring Abbi Jacobson, Danny McBride, Maya Rudolph, Eric Andre, Fred Armisen, Beck Bennett, Conan O'Brien, Charlyne Yi, Sasheer Zamata, Mike Rianda and Olivia Colman
Music by Mark Mothersbaugh
Editing: Greg Levitan
Production: Columbia Pictures, Sony Pictures Animation, Lord Miller Productions
Distribution : Netflix (International), Sony Pictures Releasing (China)
Release date : April 30, 2021
Running time: 113 minutes

Seen on April 19 in original version

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