Robots have fascinated cinema-goers ever since Fritz Lang’s 1927 expressionist silent film Metropolis. The German dystopia film portrays a near future where a female robot (a “gynoid”) is built as an evil twin of Maria, a woman trying to unionise the workforce. The robot Maria wreaks havoc, turning the workers against each other, inciting murder and the destruction of the machines powering the city.
The portrayal of robots in popular culture has always captured the technological hopes and fears of the day, veering between hyperbolic promises and dystopian nightmares. The original evil robot from Metropolis. IMDB
This millennium, Pixar’s animated WALL-E (2008) gave us warm fuzzies for a friendly and lonely garbage-cleaning robot. Comedy-drama Robot & Frank (2012) showed a close relationship developing between an older man and his care robot.
The Simpsons.
In real life, artificial intelligence has so far proved itself pretty benign Siri and Alexa haven’t tried to kill us, even if Netflix’s content-recommendation algorithm can at times be a little creepy. But the fear that our present-day technological wonders could one day bring about our downfall is never too far from our minds. And if it ever does get very far from our minds, Hollywood is always there to remind us that the robot apocalypse may be right around the corner.
The latest iteration in this line of AI-panic movies,
The Mitchells vs. the Machines, comes to us courtesy of Sony and Columbia Pictures and is now available for streaming on Netflix. Refreshingly, and unlike most other entries in the genre,
Mitchells v Machines (7+, 114mins) Directed by Mike Rianda and Jeff Rowe ½ Having been accepted into the California College of Film, Katie Mitchell (Abbi Jacobson) believes she’s finally going to meet “my people”. Sure her dinosaur-loving little brother Aaron (Mike Rianda) has always been supportive of her crazy
Dog Cop series of movies (featuring their beloved cross-eyed pug Monchi) and mom Linda (Maya Rudolph) sympathetic to her passion, but there’s always been a reticence in dad Rick’s (Danny McBride) eyes and words. Constantly encouraging her to “have a Plan B”, he’s never even watched one of her creations the whole way through. However, when their latest argument leads to a broken laptop, Rick is forced to reassess his stance. Unfortunately, his attempt to fix things only leads to more heartache for Katie. Cancelling her airline ticket, he’s decided that they will personally deliver her from Kentwood, Michigan to California by road. Sure she’l
TOM CLANCYâS WITHOUT REMORSE
(Amazon Prime)
Resurrecting a 1993 Tom Clancy book, the filmmakers decided to change just about everything except the title and Clancy heroine John Clark.
Set in the present and starring Michael B. Jordan, âWithout Remorseâ is the origin story of Clark (who is known as John Kelly through most of the film), an elite Navy SEAL on a mission with his team in Aleppo, Syria.
Instead of battling Syrians, the SEAL team discover that their opponents are Russians. Three months after the SEALS return home to America, they are targeted by Russian terrorists who decimate the members of the SEAL unit and kill Kellyâs pregnant wife Pam (Lauren London).
May 08, 2021
Rollercoaster ride: The Mitchells are the only ones who can save humanity from evil robots - NETFLIX
Rollercoaster ride: The Mitchells are the only ones who can save humanity from evil robots - NETFLIX×
What does the father of a soon-to-be film-maker do to patch up their fragile relationship? Head for a road trip with the family, of course, and battle evil robots on the way The film is a splash of colours, combing traditional digital animation with hand-drawn 2D effects and occasional graphics ‘Most action heroes have a lot of strengths. My family only has weaknesses,’ says Katie