The Electric State Review: Power it Down

The Russo Brothers’ The Electric State wastes its source material in order to develop a lifeless and bland post-apocalyptic story.

The end result is the brothers’ weakest movie, which makes it hard to believe the last two Avengers films were made by the same team.

The Electric State takes place in an alternate universe where robotics are part of everyday life. As the movie starts in 1990, we see Michelle (Millie Bobby Brown, of Stranger Things) living an idyllic life with genius kid brother Christopher (Woody Norman, of C’mon C’mon) and their parents; he is about to attend college at a very young age, and she couldn’t be any more proud of him. Cut to four years later, though, and humanity has gone through a war with the robots, and Michelle is now living with foster dad Ted (Jason Alexander), his parents and Christopher having died a couple of years before.

Things change for the better, though, when a robot that looks like a mascot from a TV series shows up at her doorstep, telling her through hand signals and pre-recorded catchphrases that it’s being controlled remotely by none other than Christopher. Thus, our plucky heroine decides to go to the EX, an area in the middle of the desert where most ‘bots are sent to die, and where his actual brother might be. And to find said place, she joins forces with smuggler Keats (Chris Pratt, of Guardians of the Galaxy) and his robot pal, Herman (voiced by an unrecognisable Anthony Mackie), who play the Han Solo and Chewbacca roles in the movie.

If The Electric State’s plot sounds generic, it’s because it is. Mixing the aesthetics of any recent Marvel movie and Spielberg’s (far superior) Ready Player One with a slightly modified version of the “Hero’s Journey” and road movie narrative beats, the film never manages to develop a style of its own, feeling more like “content” than an actual motion picture. Like many other Netflix productions, The Electric State feels like the kind of experience one could watch while doing the laundry or the dishes, making sure its plot never becomes too interesting or too complex for the most distracted viewer. I, of course, tried to respect the film and watched it attentively, but I got the feeling The Electric State didn’t have the same kind of respect for me.

Which is, of course, a pity, because a lot could have been done – narratively and visually – with Simon Stålenhag’s novel as a primary source of inspiration. Curiously, the film misses a whole bunch of the book’s original imagery, focusing on the use of corporate mascots and silly-looking robots as secondary and even plot-important characters. Having Mr. Peanut as the leader of the ‘bot rebellion, for example, might have sounded funny on paper, but as part of the final product, it feels like a cynical decision, as if The Electric State were replacing superheroes and recognisable characters from old, famous franchises with the figures we are used to seeing at the supermarket.

In that sense, The Electric State isn’t too different from something like Lawrence Kasanoff’s infamous animated disaster Foodfight! (you weren’t expecting that comparison, now, were ya?), feeling like a film that was made in order to attract viewers with mascots they recognise from day-to-day life, as if saying those figures would be the only important remnants from the old world in a post-apocalyptic scenario. If this were a more confident picture, I’d say that could be considered commentary on late-stage capitalism and the pervasiveness of brand mascots in regular western households, but… nah. The Electric State, ultimately, isn’t saying anything of the sort.

And it’s not like I’m trying to undervalue or underestimate what the Brothers have done here. At least I can state (heh) that they try to say something about the way technology has invaded our lives, with their heroine being the sort of person to shy away from using VR visors during class while the rest of her mates follow the rules, no questions asked. But it’s all approached so superficially, that the movie ends up feeling like the equivalent of a baby boomer telling millennials and zoomers that things in their time were better, and that we’re all idiots because we spend too much time on our phones. Which is, of course, hilarious coming from a movie that feels like Content™ and was made for a streaming service.

On a more positive note, at least most of the reported 320 million dollar budget (wait, what?) can be seen on the screen. Cinematography-wise, The Electric State isn’t particularly pretty, but it does include a couple of impressive images and well-composed shots, and the visual effects in general are excellent. These are the most believable and well-integrated digital robots I’ve ever seen in a movie, and most of them are voiced by charismatic actors who manage to give them well-defined personalities. I’m particularly fond of Anthony Mackie’s Herman, who has the only funny lines of dialogue, and out-charms the majority of the flesh-and-blood cast.

In fact, cast-wise, only Chris Pratt manages to stand out, and that’s just because he’s in Starlord-mode, playing Keats as a lovable rogue in the vein of Han Solo (this might be, by now, the most played-out archetype in sci-fi history, I might add). On the other hand, Millie Bobby Brown is just okay as Michelle; we know she’s heroic and loves her brother and seems to hate tech, but… that’s about it. And the rest of the human actors are clearly here just for the paycheck. Stanley Tucci plays bad guy Ethan Skate, something he could do in his sleep (and kind does here); Giancarlo Esposito spends most of his time as a face on a screen on a robot’s head (as you do), and Ke Huy Quan is basically an exposition machine.

The Electric State is the latest in a long line of Netflix pseudo-blockbusters that end up feeling more like “stuff” to waste a couple of hours on, than actual living, breathing movies. It’s clear the studio has the money to finance these kinds of experiences, so it boggles the mind why they can’t manage to spend all that cash on something that feels, you know, human. The Electric State ends with dialogue about the importance of humanity and real experiences and tactile encounters, which is funny considering the film that precedes it is exactly the opposite of that. Those 320 million dollars could have been used to make about thirty smaller movies, and considering odds are at least half of them would’ve ended up being more entertaining than The Electric State, Netflix should have realised that that would have been the smarter investment. I’m sure they wanted this to be good, but in the end, The Electric State only left me in a catatonic state.

The Electric State will be available to stream globally on Netflix on March 14, 2025.