‘The Mitchells vs. The Machines’ confronts today’s social dilemma

Here’s a movie idea for this weekend!

It’s been more than a year of community quarantine variants in the Philippines. Yet despite spending so much more time at home than ever, families continue to struggle with actually being together.

It’s easy to simply pin the blame this lack of quality time on gadgets and social media, but is it the tech, or is the humans?

In the trailer of Netflix’s groundbreaking animated film “The Mitchells vs. The Machines,” PAL, a virtual assistant like Siri or Alexa, turns on her inventor, Mark (not Zuckerberg, but with uncanny parallels) for abusing and misusing technology: “I gave you all boundless knowledge, and you treated me like this. Poke, poke, swipe, poke, swipe, poke, poke, pinch, zoom!”

Imagine if every machine with a smart chip—not just phones and computers but cars, automatic doors, and household appliances—rises up against humanity and refuses to do our bidding. An analog world where everyone is forced offline? Society would crumble.

It’s up to the Mitchell family, composed of quirky creative Katie (Abbi Jacobson), her tech-illiterate outdoorsy dad Rick (Danny McBride), upbeat mom Linda (Maya Rudolph), weird little brother Aaron (director Mike Rianda), their memeable pug Monchi, and two defective robots (Beck Bennett and Fred Armisen) to save the world from the robot apocalypse. But to do that, they first have to get along.

“The Mitchells vs. The Machines” also stars Olivia Colman as PAL, Conan O’Brien and Blake Griffin as PAL Max Prime robots, Eric André as Mark, and John Legend, Chrissy Teigen, and Charlyne Yi as that color-coordinated family-next-door with the enviable Instagram feed.

Produced by the Oscar-winning duo of Phil Lord and Chris Miller (“Spiderman: Into The Spiderverse” and “Lego Movie”), the mix of 3D and 2D animation in “The Mitchells vs. The Machines” makes it a unique visual treat. But murderous Furbys and flying robots aside, it’s a story that’s full of heart and humor that will hopefully make us appreciate our own families more—quirks and all. – RC, GMA News