Writer’s note: The second paragraph of this article (just below the first image) contains a basic outline of the film’s premise. There are no spoilers that weren’t already inferred in the film’s own trailer. However, if you want to completely avoid potential spoilers, skip over the second paragraph.
Imagine you have just won $320 million. That’s an amount of money most people can only dream of. Imagine what you could do with all that cash, or in the case of a filmmaker, all the amazing films you could make. For the directing duo known as The Russo Brothers, having that kind money is just business as usual. Known for their staggeringly successful Marvel films, the Russo’s have had a blank cheque for a number of years now, yet we are still waiting to see what wonders they can give us outside of superheroes. Well, it seems we’re all going to have to keep waiting, as their latest Netflix offering, The Electric State (2025), is like a car crash in motion.
Set in an alternate 1990s, The Electric State tells the story of Michelle (Millie Bobby Brown), a teenage girl who lost her brother and parents during a massive war between robots and humans. The humans won, banishing the robots to a giant gated ghetto. In the meantime, humans have become overly dependent on virtual reality simulator goggles, where they can remotely control robot bodies instead of ever getting off the couch. Michelle is approached by a robot called Cosmo, claiming to be a vessel for her brother’s trapped consciousness. Michelle and Cosmo set off on a journey to find her brother’s body, eventually being joined by John (Chris Pratt) and Herman (Anthony Mackie), a human and robot duo who collect scrap metal for money. Throughout their journey, they meet up with a robot called Mr. Peanut (Woody Harrelson), the leader of the robots who wishes to confront the evil industrialist Ethan Skate (Stanley Tucci) and gain freedom for his robot race.
In case you can’t tell, there’s very little effort being put into this review, even in explaining the film’s plot. In a way, it’s fitting, considering that the film puts in very little effort despite its massive price tag. For the next few paragraphs, I could go into great detail about the characters, plot, story, themes, production and so on. Just like how these reviews are often structured. However, in order to appropriately unpack thhis films’ merits (or lack thereof), the film needs to be memorable in some way, shape or form. It doesn’t matter if I’m coming to a review one day, one week, or one month after having seen a film. If it’s worth remembering (good or bad) it’ll get a full, proper dressing down. In this case, that is going to prove difficult.
The reason this is difficult, is the same reason that faces practically every middling Netflix release. These aren’t films designed to be remembered past their opening weekend. Moreover, these aren’t even films designed to be actually watched. Netflix seems to be counting on that the viewer was doom scrolling on their phone, with the film on in the background. Thus, once the credits roll, that hapless viewer can feel as though they’ve watched something mildly entertaining, with the vague sense that what they watched ‘must have been good’. There was action, comedy, some fancy visual effects, attractive stars, and music, so it must have been good. Unfortunately no, because as soon as you stop doom scrolling and actually watch the film, you realise that it wouldn’t pass muster as a cancelled TV pilot.
Things don’t get any better when you actually take the time to pay attention to the film’s completely hollow message. You’ve sat through two and a half hours (which felt like a full work day), only to arrive at the film ending on a cheap lecture about how we need to disconnect from media and live in the moment more. A bit rich coming from a studio who want nothing more than for you to endlessly binge their slop, with slop that is only halfway decent if you yourself are glued to your phone. That would be bad enough, but these films’ other attempts at emotion, social commentary or even just basic entertainment, is just noise to be easily tuned out.
Annoyingly, the barely average quality of the film will mean nothing, because everyone and their mum will watch it anyway, making it a huge Netflix success. Cinema tickets are expensive, so why not stay home and watch a new movie at home if it’s available for free? Netflix will see the successful viewership numbers, and will produce more equally rubbish projects, thinking that this is clearly what the people want. Another $300 million will be wasted on the next mildly popular book, comic or toy. They will release it to their streaming site, we will all watch it, and we’re left wondering why we keep getting terrible movies.
So after now writing seven paragraphs, I’ve still not unpacked the actual film itself. The reasons for this should be clear enough at this point, but sure, I’ve really just critiqued the streaming industry, Netflix’s business model, and their lack of care for their products. That should be more than enough to illustrate my thoughts on The Electric State, but ultimately it comes down to that one point I’ve alluded to throughout this whole review: I watched The Electric State maybe two weeks ago, and I honestly can’t remember what I’d say about it in great detail. Maybe I should have rewatched the film to prepare for this review, but that wasn’t an option, because that would mean I’d need to waste another two and a half hours watching The Electric State.
If you feel like your time has been wasted reading this review, imagine how I felt at the end of watching The Electric State.
0.5/10
Best way to watch it: Don’t.
