By Movies cost a lot of money to make. That should come as no surprise to anyone who enjoys the medium, but sometimes a movie costs so much that you have to step back and ask who would want to spend hundreds of millions to make a movie. Furthermore, why would you want to spend that much money? Unless it’s a guaranteed hit, that’s just a financial disaster waiting to happen. Looking at most of the most expensive movies of all time, there’s a certain theme they all share. They’re usually a part of a large franchise and they have the backing of a company like Disney. Admittedly, if you’re a part of a billion-dollar franchise, that does mitigate the risk slightly. So what’s The Electric State’s excuse?
Here we have an original film, based on a graphic novel, having an obscene amount of money pumped into it, courtesy of Netflix, that does not come from any existing series or franchise. Now, it shouldn’t be at all surprising why this movie exists. Netflix wants a huge blockbuster for their platform, so they’ll cater to anyone and everyone to get a movie that draws people to their streaming service. They’ll hire the Russo Brothers, who worked with them last on The Gray Man and are no strangers to big action blockbusters thanks to their work on The Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame. They’ll put their homegrown talent Millie Bobby Brown in a leading role and surround her with a smattering of Oscar and Emmy-nominated actors. Then they’ll advertise it to hell and back so that anyone and everyone knows what it is and put trailers for it in front of as many eyes as possible.
But the funny thing about pouring money into a film like The Electric State is that all that money doesn’t make the movie good. Sure, money can help enhance the quality of a film if used smartly, but it doesn’t equal quality, which is a potent lesson to learn since The Electric State is a terrible and soulless film that’s a waste of the $320 million it took to make.
The Electric State
Directors: Joe & Anthony Russo
Release Date: March 14, 2025 (Netflix)
In an alternative world, robots have advanced to the point where they’ve achieved sentience and are trying to advocate for rights. Because humans are humans, they deny their advocacy, which in turn leads to a war between humanity and machine-kind. At first, the humans are losing to the bots, but thanks to the cybernetic company Sentre, led by a man named Ethan Skate (Stanley Tucci), they create a piece of technology called a Neurocaster that allows humans to upload their consciousness into robots to help them fight back. Because of this, the robots are banished to what’s known as the Exclusion Zone, where they have to remain for the rest of their lives.
That’s fine and all, but that plot dump is all conveyed in the first five minutes, and even then, it’s haphazardly done via montage. The real “meat” of the story, if there even is some, centers on a young girl named Michelle (Millie Bobby Brown). She’s a foster kid who lost her family in the war. Not from a robot attack though, it’s from a car accident. Anyway, one day a robot sneaks into her foster home and claims to be her dead brother, and if they want to be physically reunited, they have to find his body, which they believe to be somewhere in the Exclusion Zone. And so, the two set off and make allies along the way in the form of a veteran/scavenger named Keats (Chris Pratt), and his robot pal Herman (Anthony Mackie).
Right from the get-go, it’s easy to see all of the bloat inside of The Electric State. There are numerous times where the plot is just dumped on the audience and we just have to accept it, no matter how clunky it is. Michelle doesn’t like Neurocasters. Keats was a veteran. Michelle’s family died in an accident. It’s all presented to us, but the film doesn’t do anything with it. Michelle doesn’t like Neurocasters because… she just doesn’t like them. It would be one thing if she hated them because they were somehow connected to her brother’s “death”, but they’re not. It’s just something she doesn’t really like. If that fact doesn’t impact the plot in any meaningful way, then why have it?
Copyright: Netflix
The film is littered with a lot of these missed opportunities with its narrative, and it seems to be almost by design. The Russo Brothers have gone on record that this is a very loose adaptation of the graphic novel and instead of trying to adapt its story, they referenced it more for concept art than anything else. It makes sense because this is a film that’s as deep as a puddle. Sure, the main plot is there if you squint, but complexity was jettisoned in favor of simplicity. The Russos don’t have an overarching theme for the film, or really anything that attempts to codify the plot. Events are strung together, but none of them land because we don’t care about what happens. Why should we care about Michelle reuniting with her brother when we only see two scenes of them interacting before they’re torn apart?
I understand the appeal of mindless fluff and popcorn thrillers, but The Electric State doesn’t even have the energy for that. This feels so drab and brown like it was ripped from a late 2000s military shooter. Color is virtually nonexistent in this world, and with how dull and lifeless the sets are, it’s easy for audiences to zone out. Some action scenes are peppered throughout to at least give the movie a pulse, but the action feels so weightless. I should be laughing at how a robot is piloting a robot that’s piloting a robot that’s piloting a robot that’s throwing cars at a building, but those chucked cars have no impact, same as when the CGI Neurocasted robots start to attack. It’s just CGI that you can clearly tell isn’t there.
There’s just a lack of respect for the art of filmmaking all over The Electric State. Most of the big-name actors that do appear here, like Colman Domingo, Giancarlo Esposito, Brian Cox, Ke Huy Quan, and Jenny Slate all feel like they’re here for a paycheck. Hell, in the case of the actors who appear via Neurocasted screens, I’m not even sure they were actually present in the making of the film. Given the Russo Brothers’ embrace of AI, when an actor’s face is projected on the screens, it’s so lifeless and synthetic that it does look like AI-generated it. Sure, that may not be how they utilized AI – they said it was primarily for audio modulation – but it sure does look and is presented like an AI render of their faces.
Copyright: Netflix
Then you have Millie Bobby Brown, who just isn’t a good actress. Netflix has tried desperately to make her into an A-list celebrity, but outside of Netflix Land, she’s not very good. Nevermind the fact that she has openly said she doesn’t care about films or even engages with the craft that she creates, she just isn’t able to emote and her inexperience shows whenever she has to try to interact with anyone using any of The Electric State’s clunky dialogue. She’s only popular because Netflix says she is. All I’m saying is that there’s a reason she doesn’t stray away from Netflix and its lineup of content.
Chris Pratt, weirdly enough, is pretty okay here. He’s not spectacular, and at points, he’s just recycling Star-Lord, but I can see him trying to deliver a performance, which is more than I can say about the rest of the cast. Except for Brian Cox. Cox is just delivering “I don’t care” energy and chews the scenery whenever he’s on screen. It’s great. And I guess while I’m being positive, while I may not like the CGI, it’s at least fairly detailed and shows off a lot of complexity with its designs. They’re ugly designs, but for what it’s worth, it looks like it took a while to animate.
I think that I should be more mad at The Electric State than I am, but I just can’t muster up the hate for it. It’s lazy in so many ways, whether it’s the lack of care the Russos had for the source material, how Millie Bobby Brown can’t bother to muster any emotions for the role, how the cast all seems to be here just for a paycheck, and how unclear even basic tenets of this world are. Make no mistake, like most movies with astronomical budgets in the multiples of hundreds of millions, The Electric State has most, if not all, of its edges sanded off to be as accessible as possible, but with none of the spark that makes films interesting. In other words, it’s exactly what Netflix wants – content. Mindless, thoughtless, algorithm-friendly content for people to watch not because of its quality, but because there’s nothing else to watch.
