SCREEN TIME (THE MITCHELLS VERSUS THE MACHINES)

 

It's been almost a year since Mike Rianda's animation 'The Mitchells versus The Machines' first surfaced on our screens.

Originally intended for a cinema release, Sony Pictures was forced by the COVID pandemic to sell its distribution rights to Netflix.

Yet here it is, almost one year later with an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature.

That's no mean feat.

It's only the fourth animation from Sony's production line to make it onto the Academy Awards shortlist.

But can it go all the way on Oscar night?

Given Disney Pixar's dominance of the category, that's probably too much to expect.

It's not impossible - Sony stablemate 'Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse' triumphed in 2019.

During awards season, it has also managed to pick up Annie and Critics Choice awards for Best Animated Feature.

But watching Rianda's entertaining family sci-fi comedy adventure, you just can't help feeling the Academy will play it safe and an Oscar victory is unlikely.

Rianda and his co-writer Jeff Rowe fall back in 'The Mitchells versus The Machines' on that old US comedy staple, the imperfect suburban family.

Danny McBride's father Rick Mitchell is a nature loving technophobe who is feeling the harsh disappointment of growing apart from his teenage daughter, Abbi Jacobson's wannabe filmmaker Katie.

His wife, Maya Rudolph's Linda bakes ugly looking cupcakes but is a fiercely proud and devoted mother who tries to nudge her husband and daughter onto shared ground.

Katie gets easily frustrated, though, with her dad and his inability to show any grain of enthusiasm for her filmmaking.

She is protective, though, of her dinosaur obsessed little brother, Mike Rianda's Aaron.

The family also have a cock-eyed dog, a pug named Monchi.

With Katie due to head to California for film school, Rick cancels her flight and decides all the family will travel on a cross country road trip that he hopes will bring the two of them closer together.

Not only does this irritate her but it doesn't get off to a particularly great start, with Katie dissing his choice of music and spending her time with her head buried in her tablet.

As they head to California, Katie and Aaron watch live coverage of a new product launch by a Silicon Valley entrepreneur Eric Andre's Dr Mark Bowman.

The inventor of a sentient smartphone PAL, which is voiced by Olivia Colman, he talks sweetly to it before going onstage and tossing the phone aside to reveal the next generation PAL.

This comes in the form of robots that can cook you breakfast and tidy up for you, with you ever having to lift a finger.

Hell hath no fury like a smartphone scorned.

The original PAL has other ideas and takes control of the robots by rebooting them, triggering an uprising against the humans.

Armed with the details of all its users accounts that Bowman has questionably harvested, PAL sets about trying to eradicate all humans with a robot army.

While stopping off at a rather underwhelming dinosaur exhibition, the Mitchells suddenly find themselves in the middle a robot revolution.

But as they race through battle scarred streets in their stationwagon, there is hope.

With Monchi's cock-eyed expression confusing Fred Armisen and Beck Bennett's robots to extent that they cannot identify whether he is a dog or a pig, their programme goes into a spin and they suddenly become supportive of the Mitchells.

But as the family leaves a trail of robot bodies with their stationwagon, PAL starts to zone in on capturing them.

Will PAL succeed before the Mitchells save the world? 

And can Katie and Rick find a common bond that unites them in a time of crisis?

'Produced by Phil Lord and Miller of 'Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs' and 'The Lego Movie' fame, The Mitchells versus The Machines' races along with the same brand of tongue in cheek, rapid fire humour.

And it pretty much lands all its comic blows.

The animation is smart and vibrant.

Rianda and Rowe's movie is witty and appeals to all ages.

But a lot is also down to the performances.

Jacobson voices a charismatic, smart and likeable teenager who is not without her flaws.

McBride brings to life an amiable, emotionally stunted dad.

Rudolph is typically feisty and funny as the fiercely loyal mum and Rianda not only brings their son to life but provides other voices.

Armisen and Bennett amuse as malfunctioning robots, while in a nice nod to the bolshie computer in Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey' Colman embraces the opportunity to be the nasty rejected smartphone PAL.

Andre plays the tech entrepreneur as a fickle, self centred fool, while real life couple John Legend and Chrissy Tiegen turn up as the Poseys, an Instagram picture perfect family that Rudolph's Linda envies.

They also have a dinosaur knowledgeable daughter Charlyne Yi's Abbey.

Conan O'Brien and Blake Griffin also pop up as robots.

Some Furbies even manage to score a cameo and Monchi is even voiced by an actual dog, the Nashville based pooch Dug the Pug.

It's that sort of film. Just enjoy the ride.

With its machine gun fire visual gags and focused storytelling, 'The Mitchells versus The Machines' is a great addition to the Lord and Miller stable which ought to have been in cinemas.

Blame the pandemic for that.

But at a time when the world is dominated by news that just seems to accentuate the worst aspects of human behaviour, you occasionally need to escape all that with a warm hug of a movie that'll make you laugh out loud 

'The Mitchells versus The Machines' does that in spades.

Coming across like a madcap fusion of the National Lampoon's Vacation films and 'The Terminator' movies, it bombards its audience with pop culture references and YouTube clips.

With a sequel in gestation, Sony might have landed on another animated franchise.

Bring it on but jre's hoping it gets a decent theatrical run next time and isn't confined to streaming.

('The Mitchells versus The Machines' was made available for streaming on Netflix on April 23, 2022)