Bob Strauss April 28, 2021Updated: April 30, 2021, 11:24 am
A scene from “The Mitchells vs. The Machines.” Photo: Associated Press
In “The Mitchells vs. The Machines,” a college-bound teenager must decide which is worse: a robot apocalypse or a road trip with her parents.
In the Sony Pictures Animation spectacular, premiering Friday, April 30, on Netflix, the answer to Katie Mitchell’s quandary is never in doubt. It’s an action-packed, more or less witty and eye-popping journey to a foregone conclusion, with maybe a few too many feels along the way.
Director Mike Rianda (Disney Channel’s “Gravity Falls”) has clearly put some of his own creative misfit feelings into Katie, who’s voiced by “Broad City’s” Abbi Jacobson. The amateur digital filmmaker’s dad, Rick (Danny McBride), was inspired by Rianda’s father too, also an outdoorsman and mechanical whiz who’s baffled by smartphones and computers. Daughter and father don’t get each other, and it’s up to mom, Linda (Maya Rudolph), to encourage understanding. Little brother Aaron, voiced by Rianda himself, loves dinosaurs and is afraid of girls. Oh, and the Mitchells have a goofy, wall-eyed pug named Monchi, who proves invaluable in the war against the machines.