Saw The Mitchells vs. the Machines, an animated family comedy about a dysfunctional, quirky-ass family trying to survive a robot apocalypse triggered by a tech company that seems to be an amalgam of Apple and Google. The film is pretty nice.
The robot revolution plot conflict is fairly secondary to the family's internal tensions however. The main-est character is the daughter of the family who wants to be a film maker who is very internet-culture-y. She introduces her dad by comparing him to "that video of a monkey screaming". And it is the conflict with her dad that drives most of the plot. While she is a creature of the internet, he is a Ron Swanson-like nature lover. This nicely echoes the struggle against tech that fuels the main plot of the film.
The film is fairly light-hearted however. In these modern times when Facebook is being asked to account for global radicalization, this film feels like it could have been (should have been?) more about the harms of technology and the disruption caused by the different ways folks now connect: remotely, oftentimes more shallowly. Instead however, there are wacky malfunctioning robots who help them out, hilariously ugly pug dogs, and short films that strongly evoke the mad-cap feel of Michel Gondry's movies, or Great the Show or something.
I was actually a little disappointed the film didn't tackle these tech morality issues, but I was also a bit relieved that it was just a goof-fest. The film seems very anti-tech from its premise, but the style and execution have a very modern, fast, youtube-clip-like feel to them. It's a bit of a muddle, but I think entertainment is the first priority of this film, so it's all good. A fun little film!
No comments:
Post a Comment