A robot uprising of the humorous kind, The Mitchells vs the Machines came at me from behind and got its hooks in. A Netflix animated flick I had no interest in (my 11 year-old felt differently) and ended up fully in its embrace. The father-daughter storyline is handled with care even azs the Mitchell clan is hunted by robots and giant Furbys (you read that right). The animation's vivid and the characters well-drawn (no pun intended) while the sentiment is heartfelt. Lord and Miller are becoming household names they've been killing it.

You may not poke at your phone or rather hammer on it as hard you currently you are doing ... maybe even right now. A really fun and yet quite current themed movie. The fear of machines going against us, their inventors ... it is quite big.

That being said, I didn't even know this movie existed. I found it by accident and not even on Netflix first, but on another streaming service. Was surprised as the logo and that sound we all know (and maybe love?) came on at the top of the movie. Now some say that they produce so many movies and many are subpar ... you can't say that in this instance.

The story is good, the characters are great ... one may even say this has Pixar like quality ... and I wouldn't totally disagree with that ... at all. Funny, suspensful and really topical ... and tone wise hits all the right notes. I can only recommend this as much as I can.

The Mitchells are a fairly typical, if slightly dysfunctional, family. Daughter Katie is a bit of an outsider at her school but is looking forward to attending film school in California... thousands of miles from her family. After an argument her father unilaterally decides that rather than have Katie take the plane as planned, the whole family will drive across the country together. Katie is unimpressed but soon she, her parents, her dinosaur obsessed brother and their pug are on their way. Shortly after they set off news comes thorough of a major technological advance; cell phones will soon be defunct; replaced by robots. As soon as the designer announced this the robots rebel and start capturing all humans. Only the Mitchells remain free; it will be up to them to save humanity!

I really enjoyed this animated film; there were plenty of laughs from start to finish as well as child friendly thrilling moments and mild scares. It might not be as philosophically deep as Pixar films but it still had something to say about family without being mawkish. It didn't over use pop culture references, and those that there were, such as the nods to 'Kill Bill' were subtle enough that those who don't get them won't be thinking they've missed something. The animation is impressive with good character designs and the voice cast do a fine job throughout. Overall I'd certainly recommend this; it is a lot of fun and suitable for all ages.