Before Anthony and Joe Russo return for another epic Avengers double-bill, they’re back on Netflix with The Electric State led by a powerhouse combo of Millie Bobby Brown and Chris Pratt.
On this evidence of this flat sci-fi adventure though, the Russos’ return to the MCU can’t come soon enough for the duo.
Like The Gray Man before it, we’ve no doubt that The Electric State will be massive on Netflix. We wouldn’t even be surprised if it became Brown’s second movie in the all-time most-watched movies top ten, alongside last year’s Damsel.
But also like that Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans spy thriller, The Electric State is a bundle of ideas we’ve seen before – and ultimately less than the sum of its promising parts.
Netflix
Loosely adapted from Simon Stålenhag’s graphic novel of the same name, The Electric State is set in an alternate 1994 following a war between humanity and the sentient robots that served them… until they had enough.
Humanity won out and the robots now live in exile, but humans aren’t exactly living in the real world. Everybody is now addicted to a neurocaster technology, developed by tech guru Ethan Skate (Stanley Tucci), that allows them to control a robot drone to do the boring life stuff, while they go live their dreams in a virtual world.
Orphaned teenager Michelle (Brown) is different though. She refuses to use the technology, but finds herself teaming up with a robot called Cosmo who claims that her brother Christopher, who she assumed died in a car accident, is actually alive. What’s more, Cosmo knows exactly how to find him.
In order to find him though, Michelle has to journey into the Exclusion Zone and reluctantly needs the help of smuggler Keats (Pratt) to get there. There, she might not only find Christopher, but also discover that the world is more sinister than she ever realised.
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There’s already been plenty of criticism from fans of Stålenhag’s work that The Electric State didn’t seem to share much in common with it. Tonally, it’s certainly different and more of a mainstream blockbuster offering, but the bones and themes of the story are similar. (For what it’s worth, Stålenhag likes the movie.)
Not being a direct adaptation of its source material is far from the movie’s biggest problem, in any case. When you’re left wanting to see what’s taking place elsewhere in the world or its history, then it’s not an endorsement of the story that’s actually being told.
Millie Bobby Brown does try to imbue some emotion into the search for Christopher, but it’s hard to care when we get so little of their connection. There’s some flashbacks, yet the movie is more interested in a colonel (Giancarlo Esposito in another thankless role) tracking down Cosmo or tired ‘banter’ between Keats and his robot sidekick Herman (Anthony Mackie).
If you’re paying attention, you’ll catch on long before Michelle does about what really happened to her brother, especially as it’s a spin on the well-worn ‘humans are the real evil’ trope. But don’t worry if you’re not as there are conveniently placed exposition dumps to outline it if you’re looking at your phone.
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The Russos know how to stage action sequences and also to work with VFX-heavy movies, and The Electric State is decent with these aspects. All of the robots, brought to life with motion-capture and CGI, are impressive and while set pieces are kept to a minimum, the finale is suitably epic.
It’s just that there’s always a nagging sense of familiarity – and we’re not just talking the third-rate Star-Lord that is Keats. Even just in recent years, we’ve had drone warfare in the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2, humanity obsessed with a virtual world in Ready Player One and humans vs robots war in The Creator, to name but a few.
Add them all together and The Electric State quickly feels like a generic sci-fi movie where the really interesting stuff happened before the movie started. The Russos – together with regular writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely – have crafted an engaging and original world, only to tell the wrong story within it.
Even with its flaws, there is a spark of hope in the ending which threatens to do a bold and emotional thing. It goes through with it, but then seems to remember it’s a Netflix movie and can’t cut off a sequel, so reverses on it with a cheap final beat.
Netflix
It’s reflective of the movie as a whole. There’s elements that are strong and moments where it comes to life, but too often any hope is drowned out by too many ‘seen-it-all-before’ elements that probably explains why it ended up as a Netflix movie, rather than with Universal who originally had the rights.
Should we expect more from a Netflix movie by now? Probably. But The Electric State is indicative of too many blockbuster offerings from the streaming service that do just enough to get you to watch, but are rarely good enough to be memorable.
The Electric State is available to watch now on Netflix.
Credit: BBC / Studio Lambert
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Movies Editor, Digital Spy Ian has more than 10 years of movies journalism experience as a writer and editor. Starting out as an intern at trade bible Screen International, he was promoted to report and analyse UK box-office results, as well as carving his own niche with horror movies, attending genre festivals around the world. After moving to Digital Spy, initially as a TV writer, he was nominated for New Digital Talent of the Year at the PPA Digital Awards. He became Movies Editor in 2019, in which role he has interviewed 100s of stars, including Chris Hemsworth, Florence Pugh, Keanu Reeves, Idris Elba and Olivia Colman, become a human encyclopedia for Marvel and appeared as an expert guest on BBC News and on-stage at MCM Comic-Con. Where he can, he continues to push his horror agenda – whether his editor likes it or not.
