Review of The Mitchells vs. the Machines (2021) by Commentspae — 14 May 2021

I like this film a lot; quite possibly one of the most quality replayable films I have viewed in my life. Now considering myself, this is a rather unorthodox say, especially coming from me, who despises any entertainment made by 20th century people that attempts to adapt to 21st century culture. However, this film is a certain exception to that rule.

Since this film is primarily comedy and more uses family relationships as a secondary plot element, that much should be very clear to absolutely any film critic who sees this, I will not be speaking from the perspective of that and instead take it in the form of a comedy, as it was intended to be during its 'Connected' era.

First of all, the plot and characters are more special than one would assume, and are absolutely not 1-dimensional beings like they have been claimed as. I predicted certain events based on CWACOM 2, one of Columbia Pictures' other iconic films released in 2013, 8 years prior. Turns out I was correct in certain regards, starting off with an idol being betrayed and a protagonist turning out an outsider that is ridiculed due to public misunderstanding. Columbia Pictures likes to be subversive and inventive with whatever they come across, so typically, certain predictions were inaccurate. The basic plot is that a dysfunctional family cancels their daughter's trip to college for film in order to go on a road trip around America, then interfered by the tech uprising by proxy of a single tech company taking priority over absolutely anything technological in the universe known as PAL Labs, the obvious insincere tech company CEO-parody Mark Bowman's betrayal of PAL, the cellphone that uses the company's name, being the prime cause of the uprising in question, of which the cellphone then claims that a reason will cause her to stop exterminating humanity only to reveal later on that she is a misanthrope who overall doesn't care, forcing the family to embark on a quest to save the planet and experiencing countless, then-unresolved social conflicts along the way.

Considering that, this is a very effective use and parody of all media companies and all 2000s nuclear families in general, though there are some very particular moments where the technology is basically physically impossible in function, making the film difficult to watch is a technology nerd. There may be some awkward moments featuring those parodies of the media including the filters, but in reality, that is more of an attempt to mock those filters and the people who use them than it is to act in agreement with them. This film isn't conforming to 2000s culture the same way The Emoji Movie did so by placing obvious product placements constantly, trying to remain humble in its message of corporate corruption and potential commentary of corporate intentions, only using the PAL concept for anything corporate.

As for the title characters who make the film in the first place, the screenplay definitely knew the direction it was going in regards to them as well. They're definitely better than most Western characters I have seen, and my Western fiction culture count goes into the thousands. They are intended to represent a dysfunctional family, but not so much that they can't be rooted for, in that they have altruistic intentions in their actions unlike a realistic dysfunctional family, of which would likely be as misanthropic as they are chaotic. That makes them entertaining, and gives them entertaining running gags too. But the one who strikes the most interest is the outsider main protagonist, who stands out in both appearance and personality by being the rebellious teenage girl, who is also a genius film director, producer, and publisher altogether since she was an elementary school student. The one blatant lie she tells in the whole film is the one where Rick tells the family to play it safe by remaining in Dino Stop, and she motivates him with a lie after getting an idea that she believes will allow her to be able to go to college like she initially planned to do before the road trip, of course naively telling her true intentions to her brother. Later on in the film, she tries to prevent Rick from seeing this due to PAL's constant attempts to expose the Mitchells among the PALs, to no avail, and as a result, she temporarily becomes the hated among the family before reforming by saving them all with her own genius. Overall, this is one of the best modern films I have watched to this day.