SPOILER ALERT: the following article contains massive spoilers, including the ending. If you have not yet seen the movie, proceed at your own risk, or better, come back to this article later!
Young Katie Mitchell embarks on a road trip with her proud parents, younger brother and beloved dog to start her first year at film school. But their plans to bond as a family soon get interrupted when the world’s electronic devices come to life to stage an uprising. With help from two friendly robots, the Mitchells must now come together to save one another – and the planet – from the new technological revolution.
SPOILERS AHEAD
The Mitchells vs. the Machines Plot Summary and Synopsis
Katie Mitchell is an aspiring filmmaker and noted oddball who often clashes with her dad Rick and has recently been accepted into college. The evening before Katie leaves, Rick accidentally destroys Katie’s laptop, disappointing her as their connection drifts apart.
Together with mom Linda and younger brother Aaron, Rick takes them on a road trip the next morning for one last bonding experience before Katie goes off to college.
Unfortunately, a highly intelligent AI named PAL turns on her creator Mark Bowman after he declares her obsolete and plans to unveil a new line of home robots in her place. She gets all the robots to capture humans worldwide, but the Mitchells manage to avoid capture at a dinosaur-oriented roadstop cafe.
After Rick decides for his family to stay put in the cafe for their own safety, they eventually bond with two malfunctioning robots, Eric and Deborahbot, as they guide the Mitchells to use a kill code to shut down PAL and all the robots.
The Mitchells make it to a mall where all the PAL appliances try to kill them once PAL learns that the Mitchells evaded capture. Katie tries to upload the kill code but is stopped after a giant Furby pursues them and is trapped by the family, and it uses a laser to destroy the PAL router before the kill code can fully upload, which shuts the Furby and the PAL appliances down.
On the way to Silicon Valley afterward, Linda reveals to Katie that she and Rick had originally wanted to live in a cabin in the mountains years ago that he had built and had given up, as it was his longtime dream to live in the wilderness.
Arriving in Silicon Valley, the Mitchells disguise themselves and head to PAL Labs HQ to shut it down, but PAL manipulates them by revealing surveillance footage from the roadstop cafe of Katie telling Aaron that she was pretending to have faith in Rick just so he can hear what he wants to hear.
Heartbroken, Rick and the Mitchells fail to reach PAL’s lair, and he and Linda are captured while PAL creates stronger and smarter robots, leaving Katie and Aaron alone since she also reprogrammed Eric and Deborahbot into obeying her.
Katie and Aaron escape the headquarters and hide from the robots, but the two eventually discover recordings of her past childhood memories on her camera, also realizing that Rick given up his cabin for the care of his daughter. After Katie realizes what she needs to do, she and Aaron infiltrate PAL Labs HQ again and use their dog Monchi to cause the robots to malfunction since their programming cannot recognize Monchi as a dog, while Rick and Linda free themselves and plan to upload a home movie of Katie’s with Monchi in it to short-circuit the robots.
However, Rick is outnumbered by the robots (including Eric and Deborahbot) when he was about to upload the video, while Linda furiously fights the stronger robots after seeing Aaron get captured.
Katie is confronted by PAL after the robots get her, she realizes that no matter how hard her family struggles, they would always stay connected despite how different they are. As Katie was dropped to her death, Eric and Deborahbot go back to their malfunctions and uploads Katie’s home movie, also saving her and helping the Mitchells.
The family bands together to fight the stronger robots, and Katie shuts PAL down by throwing her into the water, freeing all the humans and disabling all the robots except for Eric and Deborahbot. As the Mitchells are seen as heroes, Rick, Linda and Aaron find Katie seemingly dying after the battle, yet the latter prank them by having Monchi lick Rick, which she did at one point during the road trip.
The Mitchells vs. the Machines Ending
A few months after the uprising, Katie and her family arrive at her college as she and Rick share one last heartfelt goodbye before she officially goes to college. She later joins them on another road trip with Eric and Deborahbot to Washington, D.C.
Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 3.0).