The Electric State

Review by Ryan Michael Painter

Anthony and Joe Russo’s work in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is a remarkable resume. Their most recent efforts, The Gray Man and Cherry have been less effective. The Electric State, the duo’s second feature for Netflix, is a set in an alternate 1990s where a war with robots has left America in a post-apocalyptic state.

The narrative, however, starts a few years earlier before the war has begun. We meet Michelle (Millie Bobby Brown), a supportive sister, and Christopher (Woody Norman), her genius brother before quickly moving into an awkward time shift that forwards the viewer through a war montage puts us in the aftermath where Michelle is an orphan, Christopher and her parents were killed in a car accident.

The Electric State (Netflix)

128 Minutes, Rated PG-13
Written by Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely, Simon Stålenhag
Directed by Joe and Anthony Russo

Synopsis:

An orphaned teen hits the road with a mysterious robot to find her long-lost brother, teaming up with a smuggler and his wisecracking sidekick.

 

The war went badly for the robots once humankind was able to develop technology that allowed them to transmit their consciousness to robotic drones. That technology has now been adapted and repurposed as a way for individuals to live in a virtual world while the real one decays around them.

The remaining robot population has been declared illegal and are exiled to an abandoned shopping mall.

So, when Michelle finds a robot rooting around, she is initially inclined to turn it in. But there is something familiar about the robot. She is quickly convinced that the droid somehow has a connection to her dead brother’s consciousness. Maybe Christopher isn’t dead after all.

Michelle sets out on a journey that sees her cross paths with Keats (Chris Pratt), a junk dealer who salvages items from the wreckage of the world that was.

The Electric State feels like a sci-fi romp that has been cobbled together from a dozen or more films. Two being Steven Spielberg’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence and Ready Player One. That’s not a fatal flaw, but if you are expecting something that feels inventive, you’d be better off seeing Mickey 17. It doesn’t help that Pratt is essentially playing Peter Quin for the umpteenth time.

The cast also includes Stanley Tucci as Ethan Skate, the heroic scientist who, with a bit of help from Ke Huy Quan’s Dr. Amherst, developed the technology to defeat the robots and Giancarlo Esposito as bounty hunter Colonel Bradbury. Voice acting form familiar names like Alan Tudyk, Woody Harrelson, Jenny Slate, and Anthony Mackie. There is even a cameo from Colman Domingo.

It’s not as good as its parts suggest. It’s also not remotely as unwatchable as it could have been. The first act feels rushed. The world is never really given a chance to develop. Setting the story in the 1990s never feels justified. The soundtrack doesn’t even stick to the decade. It is disappointing in that it doesn’t feel ambitious. The robot designs are interesting, but the whole experience feels far too safe.

The film’s worst moment comes at the end when Michelle tells the audience what they should have learned from the film. It is, at least in part, the same speech that came at the end of Ready Player One.

The Electric State is a decent matinee experience. Watch it on a lazy afternoon.

And remember, if the BEST thing you can say about a movie is that it’s “visually stunning,” then they’ve done something wrong.

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