Phillip Lord and Chris Miller won an Oscar last year for producing a wee film called Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. It catapaulted Sony Pictures Animation to the top of the animation-studio heap, and gave Lord and Miller the top-level recognition many of us had been expecting for years. So their follow-up was always going to be highly-scrutinised.
That follow-up is Connected, produced by Lord and Miller and directed by Gravity Falls' Mike Rianda. It's about a family going on a road trip and trying to connect with each other in a world dominated by electronics, and it's now got a trailer.
So, it's not just about a family going on a road trip and trying to connect with each other in a world dominated by electronics. Those electronics, as it turns out, are trying to kill them, and indeed everyone else on planet Earth. This robot apocalypse comes at the hands of what seems to be an Apple analogue, which is probably a decent estimation of where the tech sector is headed.
The interesting thing here is the animation itself. There's a little bit of that painterly Spider-Verse sheen in there, especially in the human characters, and a few of the comic-book-like motion-graphic accents that film used to accompany moments of high emotion and action. Given the length of production of films like this, I'm really curious to know when those elements got added into the movie.
As for the film itself: it looks fun enough. Though I'm not sure how the gag about not washing one's hands is going to play in this day and age.
Connected stars Abbi Jacobson, Danny McBride, Maya Rudolph, and director Rianda, and releases September 18th.