Summary
A retro-futuristic robot adventure that dazzles with spectacle but never quite finds its spark.
Since the box office behemoth of Avengers: Endgame, brothers Joe and Anthony Russo have largely focused on streaming projects like Extraction, Cherry, and The Gray Man. THE ELECTRIC STATE, loosely based on Simon Stålenhag’s illustrated novel, aims to bring a Marvel-like scope—and a record-breaking $320 million budget—to Netflix audiences.
From the opening frames, there’s a lot to take in. Set in a retro-futuristic version of the 1990s, where the decade never ended but technology advanced unchecked, orphaned teen Michelle (Millie Bobby Brown) navigates a world reshaped by a failed robot uprising—one that left its once-colourful mascots exiled.
When Michelle learns that her brother Christopher (Woody Norman) may still be alive—his consciousness uploaded into a cutesy robot—she ventures into the forbidden Exclusion Zone with reluctant smuggler Keats (Chris Pratt). Hot on their trail is a relentless bounty hunter (Giancarlo Esposito), while tech mogul Ethan Skate (Stanley Tucci) has his own reasons for standing in their way. The fate of the world just might hang in the balance.
Adapting existing material is always a challenge, but screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely—longtime Russo collaborators since Captain America: The Winter Soldier—use the novel more as inspiration than blueprint. The worldbuilding is painted in broad strokes, hurtling from an all-out robot war, complete with some properly impressive large-scale visuals, to a dystopian wasteland of techno-junkies in mere minutes.
On the surface, this has all the makings of a throwback adventure, the kind of high-concept spectacle that dominated the big screen in the ’80s and ’90s. Yet it never fully embraces that tone, caught between heavy-handed moral lessons on acceptance and light commentary on technology. In fact, it’s never quite clear whether the film is warning of tech’s dangers or revelling in its possibilities.
One imagines much of the non-effects budget went to the cast, a fairly impressive collection of actors both on-screen and voicing robotic characters. Brown, however, feels miscast, already aging out of high school roles yet not quite bringing the gravitas of a lead. Pratt stays firmly in his wheelhouse. Criminally, Esposito is relegated to a tiny black-and-white screen slapped onto a robot’s head.
But this is an event picture, and the effects are the real stars. Some, as mentioned earlier, are magnificent, and the robot companions are seamlessly integrated. The soundtrack leans on familiar choices—Danzig, Journey, Wagner—rarely straying from the expected beats. (The one exception: a killer Flaming Lips needle drop over the closing credits.) Still, you’re telling me $320 million couldn’t buy a single decent wig for the entire cast?
THE ELECTRIC STATE is an entertaining ride, but one that never digs beyond the surface of its concept. You may not see all that budget on-screen or feel compelled to revisit it anytime soon. More frustratingly, that same price tag could have funded half a dozen mid-budget genre films for the platform. But this is the world we live in now, and I, for one, welcome our robot overlords.
2025 | USA | DIRECTOR: Anthony Russo and Joe Russo | WRITERS: Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely | CAST: Millie Bobby Brown, Chris Pratt, Ke Huy Quan, Jason Alexander, Woody Harrelson, Anthony Mackie, Brian Cox, Jenny Slate, Giancarlo Esposito, Stanley Tucci | DISTRIBUTOR: Netflix | RUNNING TIME: 128 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 14 March 2025
