This review was made possible by Netflix providing Popped receiving an advanced screener of The Electric State.
The Russo Brothers are back with another film, and this time it’s their second collaboration with Netflix. Depending on your views with the Russo Brothers, that could possibly be considered a threat. Their first film with Netflix, The Gray Man, received a heavily negative response across the board. While that film isn’t as atrocious as some would lead you to believe, we went into The Electric State not thinking too much regarding its current 19% Rotten Tomatoes score. Unfortunately, this film fails to have the entertainment factor that The Gray Man was at least able to offer to some extent. There are small glimmers of fun spread throughout The Electric State, but they are few and thin. If this is the quality of films we’re getting from the Russo Brothers and Stephen McFeely, then the future of Avengers: Doomsday is not looking bright.
The Electric State is based on Simon Stålenhag’s 2018 graphic novel of the same name and is set in an alternate 1994 where robots initially designed by Walt Disney (that is real backstory) attempt an uprising but ultimately fail and get exiled to the “exclusion zone,” an isolated desert in the southwest of America. The story follows Michelle (Millie Bobby Brown) as she comes across a Kid Cosmo (Alan Tudyk) robot, which takes her on a journey across a war-torn America to find her long-lost brother, Christopher (Woody Norman), who she believed was previously dead. On their journey, they come across, and team up with Keats (Chris Pratt), a war veteran turned scoundrel, alongside his irritable robot sidekick, Herman (Anthony Mackie).
The Budget Doesn’t Show On-Screen
The Russo Brothers have had a rough time since the releases of Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. After directing two films that both gained $2 billion, movies that had a budget of $325-400 million, it was thought that the Russos were capable of handling grand-scale films with overly large budgets. The Electric State currently has a reported budget of $320 million. To put that into perspective, that’s $5 million less than the minimum it took to make both Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. The only noticeable difference is that the Russo Brothers have seemingly forgotten how to showcase all that money on the screen.
The Electric State’s source material, while it’s not a book that we have read, we have seen the art that derives from it. The art depicted the world and its destruction as beautifully hopeless, and the scale of the deactivated robots throughout really set a precedent for what type of story the graphic novel was. To create an environment that’s so gorgeous while also being haunting at the same time is an achievement, and the Russo Brothers completely destroy all sense of what Stålenhag portrays in his book. For what the film offers, the visuals are still of a high standard, aside from a few moments where it’s hard to tell whether poor CGI is in place or if the Russo brothers opted to use AI to bring President Bill Clinton back to his time as commander-in-chief.
‘The Electric State’ Is An Amblin Classic (If Amblin Produced It)
While watching The Electric State, you begin to wonder how much better the direction could be if it were from the eyes of a filmmaker who had a respect for art. The entirety of The Electric State feels misguided, with the film feeling extremely disjointed. The film starts off by explaining how the world came to be and introducing the relationship between Michelle and Christopher. It has a more serious tone, but then quickly drops that once Chris Pratt enters the picture.
From this point until we begin to enter the third act, it leans more into its comedy side, which drastically hurts the film. Stephen McFeely’s writing perfectly matches the direction of the Russos Brothers, as they both feel effortless. The humour doesn’t pack a punch when they’re trying, and the film is at its funniest when the smallest of actions take place. The Electric State is at its best when it focuses on the world and allows for its characters to have layers, but unfortunately, that’s rare in this $320 million, 2-hour movie.
The Electric State felt like a movie that should’ve been in the hands of none other than Steven Spielberg. It’s unfortunate to see such a beloved graphic novel that has had high critical acclaim dwindle to what some would call “slop.” That’s what hurts the most about this adaptation. If The Electric State was an original idea from the Russo Brothers and Stephen McFeely or even an adaptation of a lesser-known IP, we could be slightly more forgiving of this final product. Instead, we’re witnessing what feels like animals being sent to the slaughterhouse. Kristina Buožytė is another name that comes to mind when thinking about another director that would’ve been a better fit for The Electric State, as her film Vesper feels more in line with Simon Stålenhag’s vision, although that film differs from what this story is all about.
Not Even Performances Save ‘The Electric State’
At this point, Millie Bobby Brown has become a glorified Netflix actor, and it’s unfortunate because she has shown that she’s more than capable enough of giving good performances. The relationship that she has with her brother, Christopher, feels like it doesn’t have the development that the film tries tricking you into believing that it does.
Chris Pratt didn’t feel like he was playing a new character and instead felt like a mix of Peter Quill from Guardians of the Galaxy and Owen Hunt from Jurassic World. There wasn’t any new material being offered from Pratt, which was disappointing, but thankfully his sidekick, Herman, gives him a lot of material to work with. There are a lot of voice actors in The Electric State who voice the robots, but there are two that stick out as one of the few positive things about this mess of a film, and that’s Anthony Mackie and Jenny Slate, who voices Penny Pal.
Jenny Slate has already delivered wondrous vocal performances in the past, such as Marcel from Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, and she delivers once again in The Electric State with her hilarious line deliveries. Anthony Mackie’s vocal range will shock viewers, and while it might’ve been due to the postproduction editing that helps him sound robotic, it’s difficult to tell that it’s Mackie voicing Herman at first. It’s not his first rodeo with voice acting, as he voiced Captain America in What If…?, and there’s a stark difference between his voice acting then and his voice acting now, and I’m hoping there’s a future for him in voice acting.
The Electric State has its villains, and as generic as they may be due to the writing, Stanley Tucci, who plays Ethan Skate, CEO of Sentre, who developed the neurocaster, a device that splits the human brain into two, allowing humans to link their minds to robot bodies and be in two places at once so they can “work and play.” A villain who doesn’t believe robots can live alongside humans. Giancarlo Esposito is once again typecast as the bad guy and plays Colonel Marshall Bradbury, a war veteran who has since become a robot bounty hunter.
Unlike Ethan Skate, Marshall Bradbury does get some interesting development that allows his character to be three-dimensional at the very last moment. What Stanley Tucci and Giancarlo Esposito both have in common with this film is that they’ve been handed a poorly written script but have given everything in their power to give performances that aren’t unforgettable in an extremely forgettable movie.
‘The Electric State’ – Final Thoughts
Ultimately, The Electric State feels like a film that would’ve thrived in the hands of Spielberg. While it doesn’t capture the immense beauty and visuals of the 2018 graphic novel, it still has stunning visuals aside from a few questionable moments that will make you question whether it has poor CG or if AI had any involvement. Anthony Mackie and Jenny Slate give memorable and hilarious vocal performances that stay the highlight of the film, with Stanley Tucci and Giancarlo Esposito working hard with the soulless script they’ve been handed that’s too scared to explore this world in the same vein as its source material.
If Disney can remake a film after only 10 years, then I can hope to see a more faithful adaptation of The Electric State in the same amount of time from a visual filmmaker who has a respect for the graphic novel and its art.
The Electric State releases on Netflix on March, 14. Check out the trailer below:
The Review
'The Electric State'
Ultimately, 'The Electric State' feels like a film that would’ve thrived in the hands of Spielberg. While it doesn’t capture the immense beauty and visuals of the 2018 graphic novel, it still has stunning visuals aside from a few questionable moments that will make you question whether it has poor CG or if AI had any involvement. Anthony Mackie and Jenny Slate give memorable and hilarious vocal performances that stay the highlight of the film, with Stanley Tucci and Giancarlo Esposito working hard with the soulless script they’ve been handed that’s too scared to explore this world in the same vein as its source material.
