The Mitchells Vs The Machines is a great modern Disney film that’s not from Disney. It won’t change your life or help you reach enlightenment but it’s an awful lot of fun. It’s touching, funny, got characters you love and can invest in but is also aware of how absolutely bonkers it is.

Katie Mitchell’s first week at film school is delayed suddenly when her father drags her onto a family road trip. The quartet don’t get along too well but when every electronic device on the planet is infected by a vengeful AI, the Mitchells are forced to work together to prevent a robot uprising.

The Characters

The Mitchells are a nuclear family consisting of a mother, a father, a son, a daughter and a cross-eyed pug called Monchi. Father and Daughter Rick and Katie are our protagonists, we get to know them the best and most of the drama in the film comes from them. They love each other dearly but their differences prevent them from saying so to each other. Katie wants to be a filmmaker in the modern media landscape while Rick, who’s a bit of a technophobe, is concerned with how she’s going to make a living as we learn he has had to abandon his own passion to provide for his family.

Katie wants to be successful and Rick wants to be happy, it’s a conflict we’re familiar with but The Mitchells Vs The Machines presents it in a modern context that makes it new and more relatable. Katie, like most of us these days, is addicted to her devices and the apparent joy and success they bring her while Rick simply wants to strengthen his bond with his daughter.

It takes a combination of both of their efforts to achieve their desires to save themselves and the world but not without a lot of heartache and struggle. Katie and Rick are the heart of the film as some of their scenes are legitimately touching. The other characters are either there to help our protagonists (particularly the mother and son Linda and Aaron), to oppose them (the evil AI PAL voiced by Olivia Colman) or to express the film’s wacky satirical humour. All are well written and perform their function perfectly.

The Comedy

The Mitchells Vs The Machines made me giggle a few times and if you know what I’m like with comedies then you know that’s a big deal!

Most of the comedy is in the crazy, awkward, occasional slapstick-style you see in the Lego Movies (I wasn’t surprised when I discovered that the producers for those films produced this). Highlights of this comedy include two defective PAL robots who try to fit in with the Mitchells, the son Aaron’s obsession with dinosaurs and Monchi’s hopeless efforts to catch whatever’s thrown right at his face.

Some of the comedy is satirical, which while not particularly subtle is rather timely. The Mitchells Vs The Machines mocks our dependence on social media and the fact that we’ve rather pathetically surrendered our privacy and freedom to big tech companies. This comedy is most common in the subplot involving PAL’s creator Mark Bowman (voiced by Eric Andre) and PAL herself who keeps Mark nearby so she can boast her masterplan to him. Technology has not only eroded our relationships (as evident in Rick and Katie’s distancing), it has made us shallow, overly dependent and very vulnerable to those in power who don’t share our interests.

With its characters and wacky humour, The Mitchells Vs The Machines gives you the joy you want from a Disney film with its self-awareness and satire preventing it from producing the alienating mushiness that lets most Disney films down. It’s good clean fun for the whole family. I never thought I’d see myself write that. I highly recommend it.

I give The Mitchells Vs The Machines a lovable 7 out of 10.