An old school father and his plugged-in, filmmaker daughter struggle to relate as their family embarks on a road trip to her new college. Their drive is interrupted by a machine apocalypse that threatens to tear these unlikely heroes apart unless they can find a way to join forces and save humanity.
For in-depth thoughts on The Mitchells Vs. The Machines, please see my colleague Michele Arbir’s review from its original streaming release here.
For further thoughts, hear my thoughts on the film on the Homedance Film Festival podcast.
Video Quality
The Mitchells Vs. The Machines comes to Blu-Ray with a stunning and vibrant 1080p transfer. The colors present in this transfer are practically leaping off the screen with the wide range of hues permeating every inch of the frame. The textures, from the character designs to the environments, are extremely impressive and give the film a real sense of depth. One of the areas where this film excels is the fluidity of the character designs. All of the individual strands of hair are unique and flowing in a subtly natural way. The level of detail these animators put into each environment shines through here. Black levels are incredibly strong with no hint of compression artifacts or digital anomalies of the sort. To say this is anything less than perfection would be a grave misrepresentation of the quality.
Audio Quality
This Blu-Ray utilizes a DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio track that gives this lively film a real vitality. There is an emphasis on the front channels for a good portion of the sounds, but activity kicks in to the surrounds and rears during the more kinetic and action-oriented bits – of which there are plenty. The film really satisfies when it comes to the music, and this track pumps the sound straight through your body in a really satisfying, enveloping way. Dialogue is crisp and clear without ever getting lost amongst the music or sound effects. The low end effects from the subwoofer give certain moments that much-needed extra weight to completely sell it for the audience. Atmospheric sound effects are rendered appropriately within the mix so that directionality is never an issue. The Mitchells Vs. The Machines will surely satisfy the audiophiles in the audience.
Special Features
- Katie’s Cinematic Bonanza Extended Cut: This begins with a minute-long introduction from Mike Rianda in which he discusses how he wanted to make this cut of the film to include as much of the material that was cut over the six-year production as possible. This is followed by a screen noting that some of the material is provided with temporary voices and rough storyboards because the scenes were never completed in a finished form. Although this cut runs only about three minutes longer than the Original Cut at 1:52:48, there is supposedly over 40 minutes of alternate material packed into this version which feels right. I didn’t time it, but this is a completely different way to experience film with new material constantly popping up. Very much worth checking out for fans of the film.
- Audio Commentary: Director Mike Rianda, Visual Effects Supervisor Mike Lasker, Production Designer Lindsey Olivares, Co-Writer/Co-Director Jeff Rowe, Producer Kurt Albrecht, Head of Animation Alan Hawkins, and Head of Story Guillermo Martinez deliver a fast and furious commentary track in which they pack in a ton of fun information. The track begins with them joking that there are too many people on the track, but it helps cement the joy of everyone together as they talk about flubs in the animation, the development of various scenes, the evolution of jokes, the creative freedom they were afforded, the easter eggs throughout and more. Definitely be sure to carve out time to listen to this.
- Dog Cop 7 – The Final Chapter: A new eight-minute short created by Katie for her college film course is provided here. This is created as a live-action short with puppets and other inventive filmmaking techniques that are a lot of fun.
- Bonus Scenes!: Eight unused scenes totaling 25 minutes of material is provided here in rough storyboard form. There is a lot of fun stuff in here including Rick learning to work with the robots, Katie imagining being popular, an early version of the robot attack and more.
- Katie’s Cabinet Of Forgotten Wonders: Nearly 12-minute of bite-sized supplements in which the creative team go into some of the stylistic choices in the film, reveal early trailers, discuss backup plans for the Furby scene and more.
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- Katie-Vision!
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- Dumb Robots Trailer
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- The Original Mitchells Story Pitch
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- The Furby Scene – How? Why?
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- Pal’s World
- The Mitchells Vs. The Machines – Or How A Group Of Passionate Weirdos Made A Big Animated Movie: A 13-minute piece in which the creative team discuss the origins of the project, the collaborative creative process, developing the character designs, working together during quarantine and more. You really get a sense that this was a scrappy underdog team which makes the fact that the movie is so good all the more satisfying.
- Hot To…: Two short pieces totaling four minutes are provided here which teaches you how to make sock puppets and how to make Katie face cupcakes.
- Booklet: This release comes with a tiny foldout featuring Director’s Notes from Mike Rianda.
Final Thoughts
The Mitchells Vs. The Machines is a sensory assault that is sure to appeal to the current social media generation. The jokes come at you at a very brisk pace and delivered with a clever way tailor-made for geeks, nerds and the like. Some may find it to be too odd, but those who get on its wavelength will crown it one of the best animated features of the year. Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has released a Blu-Ray featuring a terrific A/V presentation and a lot of great supplemental material that should make a convincing argument for not just relying on the Netflix stream. This film is a pure joy and you owe it to yourself to give it a spin. Highly Recommended
The Mitchells Vs. The Machines is currently available to purchase on Blu-Ray, DVD and Digital.
Note: Images presented in this review are not reflective of the image quality of the Blu-Ray.
Disclaimer: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has supplied a copy of this disc free of charge for review purposes. All opinions in this review are the honest reactions of the author.
Dillon is most comfortable sitting around in a theatre all day watching both big budget and independent movies.
