The Electric State – REVIEW

Millie Bobby Brown, Chris Pratt & Ke Huy Quan in The Electric State


There’s been a lot of talk online about the “death of movies” surrounding The Electric State, and from a certain point of view, I can understand why. This is a Netflix-exclusive movie, with no theatrical release that I knew of beforehand. It’s directed by the Russo Brothers; while having made some of the best/most successful movies in the MCU, their movies after their run in the MCU just haven’t landed: Cherry, The Gray Man, and now, The Electric State, an adaptation of Simon Stålenhag’s graphic novel of the same name. I haven’t read that yet, although I’ve heard very good things about it, but there’s been a big backlash to this not really being an adaptation of the book. Call me crazy, but if I can call something like Dragonball Evolution for not being a good adaptation even though I haven’t watched a single bit of anything else in that franchise, I might be able to say that about The Electric State. It also doesn’t help that this movie has a $320 million budget, which makes this one of the most expensive movies ever made! Now, I’ve been trying to not bring up budgets and if that’s a bad or good thing, but very few things need a budget over $100 million. The only things I could think of are any of the big Avengers movies where they all crossover like Infinity War/Endgame, Star Wars depending on the scale of that project, and probably the Avatar movies. Surprisingly, the CGI in The Electric State is very solid. I only say it’s surprising because Netflix movies sometimes have this glossy sheen that would try to hide any blemishes in the effects, but I’ll give some points to the Russos for seemingly spending a lot of money to make the effects for the robots, the major component of the story, look very lifelike. Outside of that, that could at least be $100 million. Of course, paying the two leads, Millie Bobby Brown and Chris Pratt, definitely went into that, but… that’s it. The Electric State never really takes off into anywhere special, even if the general worldbuilding does have a lot of potential. Okay, I’ve been going on about the effects for too long. How’s the acting? Chris Pratt is basically playing Star-Lord if he never left Earth, and that’s his shtick now, I didn’t mind that. However, nearly every other actor here feels like they’re filming a sketch for Saturday Night Live. It feels like everyone showed up for a paycheck here, including Pratt, and everyone is a lot of people. Hell, Colman Domingo is in it for one scene, and it’s just his face plastered onto a robot. Even the writing from Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, who were the writers with the Russos on their Marvel movies, just feels lazy and sloppy. That last bit is actually a very good descriptor for The Electric State: lazy and sloppy. It’s not the worst movie you’d watch this year, it's not the "death of movies," but it definitely needed a shock to its system.


Ryan’s Grade: C-