OVP: The Mitchells vs. the Machines (2021)

Film: The Mitchells vs. the Machines (2021)

Stars: Abbi Jacobson, Danny McBride, Maya Rudolph, Mike Rianda, Eric Andre, Olivia Colman

Director: Mike Rianda

Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Animated Feature Film)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Last week we hit on Vivo, a Netflix animated feature that despite its starry composer, made nary a peep when it came out months ago.  Today, though, we're going to be talking about the film that everyone seems to assume will make it for Netflix, the populist crowdpleaser The Mitchells vs. the Machines.  Coming out toward the tail end of a lot of people's quarantines, the film was a surprise hit for the platform, catching word-of-mouth despite relatively limited star power (save for Rudolph & Colman, hardly usuals in blockbuster fare), and had stayed as a probable contender for the Oscar in the months since.  As I start to collect any loose ends from the year when it comes to Oscar (I like to keep the list of films that I need to see for the OVP short on nominations morning), I wanted to get to this, and was surprised by how well I liked it...and how certain everyone was that it'll make the cut with Oscar.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is about the Mitchells, a family of loving misfits whose eldest daughter Katie (Jacobson) is about to go off to college as an aspiring filmmaker, a fact that her father Rick (McBride) is struggling with.  Rick also has issues with modern technology, something that feels warranted when a virtual assistant named PAL (it rhyming with Hal, as in HAL 9000, hardly a subtle nod to another out-of-control computer program) takes over everyone's phones and decides to send all of humanity into space.  Since they don't have their phones, the Mitchells are the last free family in America, and they use their wiles to beat PAL (eventually besting her by putting her into a glass of water, a solid comic set piece), and along the way Rick & Katie gain an understanding & respect for each other they hadn't had before.

Mitchells is long, but it never feels that way.  A two-hour animated movie would usually be a death knell, a sign of a slog, but Mitchells makes this feel full by giving us four fully-fleshed characters in each family member, not just resorting to two-dimensional characterizations.  We also get some really great asides with PAL, played by Oscar winner Olivia Colman, who steals the film wholesale (can someone please hire this woman to play a proper villain at some point, as she aces this work).  Also, the dog is marvelous and I want a series of shorts just about him.

The problem here is that Mitchells is a kitchen sink approach to animation, and I'm just going to say it-it sometimes gets ugly, as if you're watching a splotch painting of a Saturday morning cartoon.  The decisions are too manic, and it comes across as unappealing in a way that few animated films that get cited for Oscar do.  Frequently when you have a film on the edge of a nomination or trying to break through, it's something like Mirai (traditionally lovely anime) or Klaus (with breathtaking uses of lighting).  Mitchells is neither of those things, and looks cheap.  I don't think this negates from the story, and I'm not saying this is going to cost it, but if we assume Encanto, Luca, and Flee are all locks, that leaves four films (Mitchells, The Summit of the Gods, Belle, and Raya and the Last Dragon) duking it out for the final citations.  Mitchells is the least visually compelling of these four contenders-if this is a surprise upset (I'd tentatively put it between fifth & sixth place), it'll be because we ignored the animation style, which is not something Oscar tends to favor in this category.