Weekend Watch: The Mitchells Vs. The Machines, And Tom Clancy's Without Remorse
A techno-revolt brings trouble (and hilarity), while Michel B. Jordan gets tough.
Image Credit: Netflix
Welcome to the latest edition of Weekend Watch, in which I recommend (or occasionally warn against) movies or TV shows I’ve been checking out. This week, there’s a robot uprising, and Michael B. Jordan is out for some Tom Clancy–fuelled vengeance. Follow James on Twitter: @jamwhite
Did you love Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse and wonder if the same level of visual invention, hope, and heartfelt storytelling could be poured into another film? Good news! The Mitchells Vs. The Machines is here to answer that question with a gigantic “yes!”
Though it only really shares producers Phil Lord and Chris Miller and some of the crew from that Oscar–winning movie, The Mitchells has Spider-Verse DNA running right through it, spliced with a fun, funny family outing based on Mike Rianda’s own clan growing up. The Gravity Falls veteran, co-directing and co–writing here with fellow Gravity stalwart Jeff Rowe has concocted a winning story about a dysfunctional family dealing with their issues amidst a road trip. Oh, and a machine uprising... Our way into the tale is via creative outsider Katie Mitchell (Abbi Jacobsen), who is accepted into the film school of her dreams and is eager to leave home and find “her people.” But when her nature–loving dad (Danny McBride) insists on having the whole family drive her to school and bond during one last totally–not–awkward–or–forced car trip. Just when the journey can't get any worse, the family suddenly finds itself in the middle of the robot revolt. An AI (voiced amusingly by Olivia Colman) is sick of being treated as just a techno–butler and hijacks the machines designed as her replacement (plus a wealth of others, from toasters to Furbys) to enslave humanity and control the planet. The last people left to stop it, the Mitchells will have to find a way to use their own abilities to fight back.
Originally created for Sony Pictures Animation, this has since been sold to Netflix, and Sony might just be kicking themselves for letting this one go rather than waiting for the pandemic to subside further and more cinemas to open up. Because The Mitchells is another winner. Springing from Katie’s mind, journal and video output, the style blends her uproarious vision of the world with sophisticated CG animation that is able to evolve into whatever the story calls for. Journal entries, Snapchat filters and segments from Katie’s films pop up and overlay to amplify plot points or simply to crack a good gag, including many featuring the family’s cross–eyed, dopey Pug Monchi. When he’s not starring as “Dog Cop,” he’s just fodder for great moments in the movie, including short-circuiting some of the robots, who simply can’t figure out what he is.
The story of the family’s efforts to stop Colman’s PAL in its tracks is a familiar one, but it also finds specific and universal things to say about families needing common ground and when outsiders prove themselves to have what it takes in a crunch. Jokes are thrown at the screen (sometimes literally) to see what works, and a good deal of them succeed to incredible effect. The voice cast, which also includes Maya Rudolph and Rianda himself), is a delight and if you don’t find yourself rooting for the family, I have to wonder if your heart is still functional.
The Mitchells Vs The Machines really deserved to have its superb story and boundless visuals showcased on the big screen, but at least with Netflix it’ll enjoy a wide audience and, if there’s any justice, it’ll be eligible for next year’s Oscars.
The Mitchells Vs The Machines hits Netflix on Friday.
Image Credit: Amazon
Like The Mitchells, Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse is a cine–orphan adopted away from its original home of Paramount to the warm embrace of Amazon. Unlike it, though, this feels very much a throwback to an older era of filmmaking.
Given that the action-thriller offers the origin story for tough military/intelligence services “fixer” John Clark, it makes it the ideal companion for Amazon’s Jack Ryan series, even if it was never intended that way. Could the two one day meet? You just know that someone in the depths of Amazon Studios HQ is already considering that. For now, though, this story stands alone, putting Michael B. Jordan front and centre in the mixture of tragedy and vengeful justice that turns a Navy SEAL called John Kelly into the Clark that Tom Clancy novel fans know well.
Though while they may know the concept, the story has been given a big overhaul, with a different through-line and a stab at diversity in front of the camera beyond the presence of Jordan in the lead. That said, the actual plot has the barebones feel of a Denzel Washington thriller from the 1990s, and you can easily imagine him starring were this made back when Clancy sold the rights (even if it was actually pitched to the likes of Keanu Reeves and Tom Hardy during its long, slow trip to screens). And on that journey, the plot has been shifted considerably from the original novel. After a CIA–backed mission in Syria goes wrong and lives are lost, things get even bloodier when unknown forces start taking out Kelly’s comrades, and then storm his house, leaving him hospitalized and a widower. He vows to find out who is behind it all, and when he’s frustrated in his attempts by the agency, he decides to go it (mostly) alone. As opposed to the source material, Pam Kelly (Lauren London) is the actual trigger for his angry mission to track down her killers as opposed to perishing in a car accident before the main plot begins. And Without Remorse trades the book’s drug kingpin plot for a timelier tale of rising tensions between Russia and America and government conspiracies. A subtext of race and the shoddy treatment of those who put their lives on the line for patriotism’s sake are also lurking within. The film does at least hang on to the character’s penchant for inventive forms of interrogation of baddies – suffice to say no one should ever be rushing to spend time in a car with Kelly.
Jordan remains the force of charisma he has proven to be in his career so far, though Without Remorse mostly requires him to scowl and be brutal when the moment calls for it, which he handles adeptly. Around him, Jamie Bell plays a CIA agent with his own connections to the case and Jodie Turner-Smith impresses in a smaller role as Kelly’s SEAL colleague Karen Greer. Yet with Sicario: Day Of The Soldado collaborators Stefano Sollima [director] and Taylor Sheridan [writer, with additional work on Remorse also by Will Staples], you’d be forgiven for hoping for something a little more imaginative. Certain action sequences are effective, such as the early firefight and a prison brawl between Jordan and several guards. Others, though, descend into dimly lit chaos, with little way to distinguish what’s going on. And for large chunks of the later running time, the film runs on a straight-forward track through the stops you already knew it was going to take.
Among the other problems are the clichés that propagate all over the narrative: one character practically has “up to no good” written on their forehead (and in the old Law And Order trope game, you can probably figure out who from the recognition factor of one of the stars), while in another case, someone snarls to Kelly about “the freedoms you take for granted.” I’m not completely sure how someone who literally risks their life for their country and has suffered incredible loss because of a mission is taking any freedom for granted.
Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse (it’s hard not to see that as just a description of the author) certainly has enough to keep you watching, even if you might hope it could have been something more. Perhaps there will be scope to properly explore the man if Amazon commissions follow–ups (or even a series, with the potential for that aforementioned Ryan crossover). As it is, this is a basic action movie lifted by its leading man and several co-stars, who, like the main character, all deserved better backup.
Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse arrives on Amazon on Friday.