Speaking of being anything, Linda has a more distinct personality, but the ending bulldozes her into something completely different. The impetus for such is Aaron being in trouble but the entirety of The Mitchells Vs. The Machines is built around one set piece after another of the family in peril and bumbling their way out of it. As such, wouldn’t she “Hulk out” from the onset of the A.I.-induced apocalypse? Logic dictates yes, but the script was nothing more than a half-formed idea scribbled onto a napkin by a drunk bar patron, so internal logic is not of any import to the machinations of the plot or any action the characters make. And Mark does not prove much better, as he is only there as the person who created the robots and has literally nothing else to define him.
Then there’s the actual plot of The Mitchells Vs. The Machines. So, the characters are not defined enough for their actions to make sense, but it is not like the story they serve is good. In fact, it is remarkably piss poor. At the conference where Mark introduces the robots, they are on stage for a minute, possibly less, before they begin abducting humans. This lack of build-up translates to a lack of tension and stakes. Without giving the audience time to understand the robots, their function in society, and how the average person feels about them, the film comes across as rushed and unsure of what it truly wants to focus on.
The abrupt evil turn of the A.I. also introduces plot holes: How did the robots and their leader (who is not a surprise and easy to figure, but no spoilers, so won’t be named here) build an entire compound to house the humans without someone noticing? Or was it constructed in the 30 seconds between switching from good and evil and the kidnappings beginning? If so, how exactly? How do the robots track down the homeless or people intentionally off the grid? By making them evil from the moment they appear, co-writers and directors Jeff Rowe and Michael Rianda fail at creating a cohesive narrative or a believable world, as too many plot threads or inexplicable scenes occur without real context. This keeps those watching at arm’s length from everything happening, as they aren’t rooting for the characters, nor are they invested in the narrative.
“…the one genuinely heartfelt moment comes at the end of the film.”
Of course, with the kitchen sink approach to both humor and action that The Mitchells Vs. The Machines takes, some things are bound to hit their mark eventually. At a mall, a giant Furby attacks the family, and it is the most entertaining action sequence of the film. And a joke about the robots being unable to tell if the family’s pug is a dog, pig, or loaf of bread is amusing, even if it’s overplayed.
Then, the one genuinely heartfelt moment comes at the end of the film. This is a spoiler, so no direct quotes, but Kaite’s mom asks her a specific question about Thanksgiving. It happens so quickly, in a mad deluge of other questions being asked, so it is understandable if someone missed it. But it sweetly shows acceptance and compassion without ever explicitly drawing attention to it. And the fact that it is just one of many questions happening at once normalizes it in the best possible way.
The Mitchells Vs. The Machines is a trainwreck from beginning to end. While a joke here or a scene there does work, they are few and far between and not worth the ocular assault of stupid that makes up the majority of the film. The plot is riddled with holes; the characters, save for Katie, are terrible, ill-defined, and annoying; while the animation uses too many conflicting styles to be coherent or fluid. This is the worst film of the year.
"…the worst film of the year."
Good review. 7/10. I thought this movie was atrocious and absolutely unfunny at every turn. No one else seems to notice this except for a very few amount of commenters under reviews and videos about this hogwash. For me, I thought the Furby scene was obnoxious though, and the bumbling nonsense that the difunctional family did at the end to somehow save the whole city/world was insanely stupid. When the family should have failed the mission, some Deus Ex Machina plot hole saves them. Annoying. Unsatisfying. The “villain” didn’t even know how to handle his own rebelling and defective A.I bots. What a waste of a character.
Just because stylization, colorful visuals and uniqueness are admired by many doesn’t mean you must overuse these qualities in every moment of silence or whenever there’s a pause in this film. Give it a BREAK. And to mix those things with AWFUL and aged internet humor is worse than smelling fresh vomit. It’s not exciting, it’s not good; it’s distracting. “But Katie is unique! That’s LiTeRaLlY her character, so the funni ha ha 2D stuff HAS to be there! HEE-HAW.” No it doesn’t. It’s an embarrassing, foolish take on what the writers think young teens and young adults find funny in current year. If this film came out in 2010, then this would be a somewhat reasonable excuse, but alas, this isn’t so. Precious little Katie and her annoying family have the exact traits that fuel the fire for what makes people like her get bullied for simply existing. Everything that they do, especially Katie, is so viscerally unlikeable that I was expecting her to learn some kind of lesson at the end from her dad, the villain tech guy, or from an evil robot about how being a self-centered diglett trying to get into film school with terrible YouTube videos and a horrid grasp on “comedy” isn’t going to get her anywhere in life or into a real career. She needed to be told to grow up and that college-level career stuff isn’t about playing with trinkets and spinning in circles with her bug-eyed dog. There could have been a lesson about responsibility and such; SOMETHING non-generic, but no. She girl-bossed until sunrise and flew through the sky shooting ze evil robots while poorly singing Live Your Life with her dad. “Family good!!1!1!! Quirky good1!!1!! Be yourself good!!!”. Nothing of value was gained after watching this movie. No, it wasn’t a good watch. The tropes and lessons have been said and done before BETTER in other animated kids movies. Kids, teens, and young adults deserve better than this! “Good” animation isn’t enough anymore!
Anyway, there’s just way too much to unpack moment by moment about the horrors of this film. The pop-culture references will make this movie age like rotting cheese sizzling in direct sunlight. I’d say the ONLY reasonably tolerable things about this movie were the 2 defective robots that tagged along with Ms. Redhead Glasses and her incompetent parents and terribly voiced little brother after the fallout. Those robots were MILDY charming sometimes.
The TL;DR is: this movie is 1/10 (perhaps even less?). Not even the animation saves it. PLEASE, audience, there is no good reason to be praising this putrid trash fire. The film is NOT great. You’re just overreacting to nothing special, and you have the palate of a cows backside when it comes to what you think is a good kids movie, if you genuinely enjoyed this with 0 complaints. GOODNIGHT.
The movie is a farce and a laugh root from the word: “Go”. The same can be said if this review.
You’re an idiot!!! This is a great movie. I loved it.
Worst review of the year. Okay you didn’t like it, but terrible, self-serving, comically bad criticism.
I had to have a quick gander just to see what absolute nobber would give this movie the title ‘Worst of the Year’ and a 1/10.
Bloody awful “look at meeee” review and a shitty website to boot, so need to ever come back.
Yeah, this is exactly how I felt. It’s like someone watched YouTube videos (and didn’t understand them), then tried to make a movie out of that concept, with the tired coming of age elements tacked on. It tries too hard, and doesn’t succeed on any level for me.
The use of realistic elements can be well done in a cartoon. This was just jarring, and irritating. The visuals set my teeth on edge from the first moment.
I actually agree that the movie was an onslaught of animation and visually tiring at times, but to call it the worst movie of anything is a huge stretch and dismissive of what is otherwise a hilarious and touching action comedy with biting social satire. In fact I found it made its comments on technology addiction better than Pixar’s Wall-E. Objectively speaking, the movie was competent in all aspects, if not absolutely brilliant. The 2D cutouts worked and were on point. It’s an old gag to have realistic images juxtaposed in cartoons, it’s been done in Spongebob and many other shows. I don’t think you are giving the movie a fair chance.
Congrats on playing the “contrarian trying to get attention” role that is normally reserved for some a-hole at the National Review. Your medal is in the mail.
Congratulations Film Threat and Bobby! You have written a review bashing this film. You are entitled to not like the film and write a review about not liking it. However, your review seems like a thinly veiled attempt at getting eyes on you, your review, and your website.
While top film critics typically disagree and critics all have an opinion (it’s literally their job) after reading your review, you seem to be in a very small group of critics that didn’t enjoy this movie. I will make sure that I keep an eye out for Film Threat and actively avoid your website and reviews. If this website is going to do their best at playing the “Come look at me” card, I will make sure I do the opposite and steer clear.
I do hope this review was worth it as I’m sure you have lost an incredible amount of credibility by exercising your right to not only dislike the film, but completely destroy it. I do hope the ad revenue is worth it.
I wish I had read this review before wasting evening, the movie is total rubbish.
Our opinions about movies are subjective by their very nature. As such, it’s virtually impossible for someone’s opinion to be objectively wrong about a movie. Nevertheless, you managed to pull it off here, Mr. LePire. Hats off.
Did you get that it is an animation?
Congrats on getting noticed! I noticed you! Your opinion and critique have been noticed in a sea of positive reviews! Contrarians unite!
I give this review a 1/10. We get that you like writing reviews… but this one falls short. Maybe stick to analyzing the genre of films that you enjoy watching.
Quite frankly, at it’s base you appear to have forgotten about something termed, “Suspension of disbelief.” Something that was kind of obvious throughout the review, but made most obvious with your lines, ” How did the robots and their leader (who is not a surprise and easy to figure, but no spoilers, so won’t be named here) build an entire compound to house the humans without someone noticing? Or was it constructed in the 30 seconds between switching from good and evil and the kidnappings beginning? If so, how exactly? How do …. ”
We get it, we get it. You didn’t like the movie. Or rather this movie isn’t for you, and that’s okay. But in turn… your reviews, such as those talking about the absurdist humor to be found in slasher films, may be better suited for that. And not so much for well, the feel good family style movies that have the dumb/funny, “Scott Pilgrim vs The World” vibes.
Also yes, I get the feeling that my grammar, and the like may be dissected here in some form of biting come back. But I’ll happily state… I’m no grammar professional, or writing coach. I grew up a professed biology nerd, who wanted to be a doctor and then ended up getting accepted to med school but then changed her mind. So at least you have an accurate frame of reference to shoot back at me with.
All that said, I still give this review a 1/10. HAVE AT YOU!
What movie is worth 1/10? You’re out of your mind or just trolling. Just because you’re a movie critique, you don’t have to be critical of everything. You’re allowed to have an opinion of course but we’re allowed to critique you too and…I can’t imagine you being fun at the kinds of parties I like to go to where people are fun and can experience joy out of a film like this. You’d be a hit at a party full of negative people who s**t on anything that is good because it makes you ‘different.
The Mitchells Vs. The Machines (2021)
Best film of the year. Watched it three times over the weekend.
Why was this published when you clearly didn’t see this movie?
I must not have seen the film because… I didn’t mindlessly like it as (seemingly) everyone else did? Yeah, dissenting opinions, not allowed. How dare someone not agree with me? There’s no WAY we could have watched the same thing and had different reactions as, after all, everyone is the exact same, right?
I understood and agreed with your points about the animation, especially not giving it time to breath and the jarring aspects of the cutaways. I don’t understand the take on the dad though. You suggested his motivations or reasons for resisting his daughter’s artistic endeavors weren’t clear – but that’s such an essential and obvious part of the movie that it didn’t need to be explained for most viewers I think. He didn’t want her to grow up and leave the home… It’s a trope as old as time, or at least 80/90’s sitcoms in their latter seasons. Even a less charitable reading would still be about him being out of touch and more practical by nature, another well worn dynamic in movies and tv.
My issue is that there is nothing else to him, so his arc does not make sense.
you must be fun at parties
What’s the correlation between disliking a movie and partying? The two do not go hand in hand.
Bruh its just a metaphor like dude really its not that serious
This absolutely was the worst movie of the year, in an admittedly pretty bad year for cinema. There are many great animated features out there that have depth, character and enough cohesiveness to convey mature themes in ways that go beyond ‘family goooooood’. I find it surprising that the vast majority of viewers seem to have soaked it all up, but I guess the ability to sit for 1.5 hours without having to follow a plot or spend any of that time digesting a concept can be liberating. The film actually inhibits the formation of any complete thoughts with its rapid jumping form one incoherent half-baked idea to another. What really blows my mind though, is those of you coming here to criticize someone writing an opinion of the movie that they don’t like. There are plenty of outlets salivating over the movie for you people to post your equally slobbery comments on if you want… why come here. Independent thinking is scary I know, but you’ll all be safer if you stay in your Kool-Aid filled world.