by Nick Ferro, Contributing Writer
The Electric State is Netflix’s newest and most expensive movie to date, and if I’m being perfectly honest, it was one I didn’t really have a lot of interest in prior to watching. There was something about the trailer that just didn’t work for me. As the months wore on prior to release, and as I saw more advertisements for it, the more I was able to piece together why I was so disinterested. Turns out it was a confluence of many things. For one, as much as I like Chris Pratt in movies, his real-life persona, coupled with him popping up in everything, has started to creep into my subconscious as being rather annoying. I thought I was able to separate art from the artist, but for some reason, his case is proving more difficult. The second reason is the Russo brothers. I know, I know, they directed Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame, possibly two of the most excellent movies of all time, with a level of difficulty that should prove their worth as directors. One could argue, if you can direct those movies successfully, you can do anything. However, every attempt at filmmaking they’ve made since then has been anything but entertaining. The Gray Man was decent, but really only worth watching for Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans’ performances, and Cherry was pretty abysmal. The Russos seem to be obsessed with making over-budget movies that look like they had half the budget. I’m starting to wonder if Netflix is using them to launder money. Which brings me to my final reason of disinterest: The Electric State has a reported budget of $320 million, and while at least the CGI of the giant robots looks good for most of the movie, that is WAY TOO MUCH MONEY!! Holy jeez, this movie has to be the sole reason we all got that subscription price hike this past year, and that really pisses me off. The Electric State really had an uphill battle to get me on its side, yet I didn’t walk away as negative as some.
The filmstarts with a pretty interesting concept: In this alternate world, functioning robots were created by Walt Disney for his parks, and the technology advanced to the point of the singularity. These sentient robots soon realized that they were little more than slaves to humans, and began requesting rights as individuals. This of course didn’t sit well with the humans, who didn’t want their free labor to go away, and in 1990 a war broke out. The Robot army, led by Mr. Peanut (Woody Harrelson), was winning the war. When suddenly, for some foreshadowy reason, the CEO of a major tech corporation, Ethan Skate (Stanley Tucci), introduced drone soldiers that humans could pilot with his new virtual reality tech. Once the war was level and robots were fighting robot drones, the humans won pretty quickly and a peace treaty was signed, forcing the robots into an “exclusion zone” in the southwest, and making the creation or owning of a robot illegal. Honestly, the events of this war would have made a much better movie to watch. But with that exposition dump out of the way, the movie follows Michelle (Millie Bobby Brown), who, after losing her whole family in a car accident, is a depressed foster kid who refuses to use the new VR machines that everyone is addicted to in a very discount Ready Player One kind of way. One night, Cosmo (voiced by Alan Tudyk) a robot based on her younger (genius level) brother’s favorite cartoon, shows up at her house and convinces her that he is in fact her allegedly dead brother who is not actually dead. This sets them on an… adventure (?) into the exclusion zone to find the doctor (Ke Huy Quan) who kidnapped him. This brings them to Keats (Pratt) and his robot partner Herman (voiced by Anthony Mackie), who make a living going into the exclusion zone to scavenge for old items to sell on the black market. Oh, and they are also being chased by a drone wearing former Colonel Bradbury (Giancarlo Esposito). If you’re thinking, that was an awful lot to put into the first 20 minutes of a movie, you might be able to see the problem.
The first indication that this movie is trying to “Steven Spielberg” is an early shot which starts low as Michelle rides her bike down the street, slowly rising up and following her. It’s a classic Spielberg move that everyone knows, indicating the tone going forward. In fact, paying homage to one of the greats in a movie that should evoke the same kind of feelings is never a bad thing. Star Wars: Skeleton Crew just did a something similar to greater success. However, where The Electric State really gets it wrong is the characters. Other than Michelle loving her brother and wanting to save him, she has no depth. We don’t know who she is, what she likes, or her personality beyond “love brother, must save.” Brown can’t even show the necessary levels of emotion needed for what little her character is given. A director on Spielberg’s level would have gotten what was needed from his actors. Same goes for Keats; we see in the news footage that he was a soldier in the war, and we know that he is a guy who now works with a robot and sells illegal things to people. Pratt, being a more experienced and charismatic actor, is able to bring Keats to life more than Brown is with Michelle, but like Michelle, there isn’t much for Keats in the script. Cosmo just says his character’s catchphrases, and Herman is the stereotypical comic relief. There is nothing more going on. The only person giving it his all for a well-written character is Tucci, who does dastardly calm villain so well. The Russos just don’t seem to be up to the challenge of getting great performances out of less experienced actors. When you have Downey, Evans, Ruffalo, and Johansson on your team, you really don’t need to do a lot of heavy lifting as directors. And yes, a lot of the character and dialogue issues are the responsibility of the screenwriters, too. But in the case of direction, we never get much more than simple line delivery from the actors.
But let’s talk about the screenwriters: Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, the renowned writers of Infinity War and Endgame. They adapted The Electric State from an illustrated novel, and this could be a sign that they aren’t great adapting someone else’s story. After the Russos’ past misses, and this current disappointment, I am starting to become really concerned about the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday. The characters in The Electric State don’t do much more than spout clichéd one-liners and old tired jokes. There are some decently funny lines or moments, but for the most part, they just do what seems to be the standard comedy format of movies nowadays, with lines like, “Did you see that?” (pause for laughter), or the character says, “I am not going to do that!” and then immediately does that, as well as the most egregious phenomena to come out of the Netflix movie era: dialogue that repeats the thing that just happened visually, because we can’t be sure the audience isn’t looking at their phone. This one really grinds my gears, as it is both insulting to any audience member with half a brain, but also represents how we are slowly creeping closer and closer to Idiocracy becoming real life.
I don’t want you to think this is the worst movie Netflix has made of all time though, because it really isn’t (see our review of Rebel Moon Parts One and Two). However, the cost-to-quality ratio does make it seem that way. One positive I will give the movie is my seven- and 12-year-olds both really liked it, sitting through the whole thing uninterrupted. With a 66% success rate among children in my household, that’s not bad. Additionally, my wife didn’t even leave the room, which means it was the perfect second screen movie for her, frustratingly proving Netflix executives correct. To a point, I appreciate that this movie did for my kids what movies like Hook or Small Soldiers did for me — I just wonder to what end will they have enjoyed it. Something I’ve noticed about the way they consume media: They don’t revisit movies the way I did as a kid. They watch movies one time and that’s it. However, they binge their favorite tv shows on repeat. They have watched Gravity Falls or Fuller House about 10 times each, and that blows my mind. It is very rare for them to rewatch a movie unless its something they are very into. I suppose the true test of how well they enjoyed The Electric State will come in the next few days or weeks.
I could dive deeper into how I liked the attempt at paralleling our real world and how “othered people” are turned into villains by the government and media, simply for wanting to be treated fairly. I could talk about how the film creates a very interesting world of Robots having sentience, yet the rest of technology is nostalgically 1994 with a slew of Easter eggs for the olds in the audience. I could even make comparisons to how the corrupt elite will always use people for their own devices, and pacify a populace in order to maintain control and wealth. But since the movie isn’t bothered to delve deeper into any of those proposed topics or themes, I don’t see why I should dedicate anything more than this single paragraph.
The Electric State should not have cost as much as it did, and it doesn’t need 37 celebrity voice cameos. But it’s also not a terrible movie worth ire and anger. It exists in a world were there will be another new movie a week from now that you can also watch while making dinner or looking at your phone. That’s not exactly what I want from a movie, but as I am learning, the older I get, the less movies are made for people like me, who actually want to sit still for two hours and go on a fun adventure without other distrac- oh! Pasta’s boiling! Gotta go!
Rating: It Was Just Okay
The Electric State is currently streaming on Netflix
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