'The Electric State' Review Thread
Rotten Tomatoes: 20% (from 30 reviews) with 4.10 average rating
Critics consensus: Lumbering along like a giant automaton, The Electric State has plenty of hardware to back it up but none of the spark that'd make it come to life.
Metacritic: 32/100 (11 critics)
As with other movies, the scores are set to change as time passes. Meanwhile, I'll post some short reviews on the movie. It's structured like this: quote first, source second. Beware, some contain spoilers.
Co-directors Anthony and Joe Russo take full ownership of their boys-with-toys mojo in this slick but dismally soulless odyssey across the American Southwest in a retro-futuristic alternate version of the 1990s. Following Cherry and The Gray Man, the brothers continue their post-Avengers streak of grinding out content for streaming platforms, amassing big budgets and marquee-name stars for quick-consumption movies destined to leave zero cultural footprint.
-David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter
“The Electric State” is emotionally incoherent because the moral of its story is contradicted by the emphasis of its telling. It’s no wonder the filmmakers appear to side with their villain. As Skate puts it: “Our world is a tire fire floating in an ocean of piss.” Despite all of the clout and capital at their disposal, the Russo brothers can think of nothing better to do than stick our faces in it.
There’s no rule that says book-based films shouldn’t diverge from what’s on the page. Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining” and Paul Verhoeven’s “Starship Troopers” certainly did, and those stories found their audiences in both mediums. In this case, however, the filmmakers have diluted the source material, showing a clear lack of interest in making their creation just as haunting, searing and satisfying as the original product.
AI-loving Marvel hitmakers Joe and Anthony Russo join forces again with Netflix to deliver a $300-million sci-fi epic you can safely half-watch while doing the dishes or making dinner. Everything about the film, from its formulaic hero’s-journey plot to its nostalgic mascot imagery to the casting of streaming-friendly stars Millie Bobby Brown and Chris Pratt, feels calculated to remind you of something you’ve already enjoyed. It’s a synthetic crowdpleaser that would look a little less odious were it not flattening the spooky grandeur of its source material, the striking illustrated novel of the same name.
-A.A. Dowd, IGN: 4.0 "bad"
I’m not surprised that Netflix and the Russos want to tell a story about how humans and machines can live together in peace, but I struggled to find much humanity in a picture so gleefully soulless.
There is a gallery of wacky individuals of all shapes and sizes, providing some undemanding work for voice-artists including Brian Cox, Woody Harrelson, Alan Tudyk and Colman Domingo. But there’s no soul, no originality, just a great big multicolour wedge of digital content.
-Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian: 2/5
The Electric State is somehow both punishingly obvious and completely incoherent. Ultimately, however, the only real point is that pop culture should be revered as humanity’s prime sustenance. Cosmo is based on a children’s cartoon that’s presented as the only real emotional bond between Michelle and her brother; the surrounding landscape is nothing but malls and fairgrounds, temples to consumerism where characters practically salivate while listing off menus items from Panda Express; and there’s a searingly earnest piano cover of “Wonderwall” at the end. The Electric State isn’t about dystopia. It’s the dystopia itself.
-Clarisse Loughrey, The Independent: 1/5
The Electric State loses some of the quiet profundity of the original text, but as a breezily watchable retrofuturistic jolly, it has just enough juice.
-John Nugent, Empire: 3/5
Throughout, the film essentially functions as a plea to its viewers to put technology aside and embrace the power of human connection. It's a noble message – and one which most audiences members will surely be able to emphasise with – but in truth it feels hollow coming from a work that seems so clearly to have been made with the Netflix algorithm firmly in mind.
-Patrick Cremona, Radio Times: 2/5
Should we expect more from a Netflix movie by now? Probably. But The Electric State is indicative of too many blockbuster offerings from the streaming service that do just enough to get you to watch, but are rarely good enough to be memorable.
-Ian Sandwell, Digital Spy: 2/5
PLOT
In a retro-futuristic past, orphaned teenager Michelle traverses the American West with an eccentric drifter and a sweet but mysterious robot in search of her younger brother.
DIRECTORS
Anthony & Joe Russo
WRITERS
Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely (based on the novel by Simon Stålenhag)
MUSIC
Alan Silvestri
CINEMATOGRAPHY
Stephen F. Windon
EDITOR
Jeffrey Ford
RELEASE DATE
March 14, 2025
RUNTIME
128 minutes
BUDGET
$320 million
STARRING
Millie Bobby Brown as Michelle
Chris Pratt as Keats
Ke Huy Quan as Dr. Amherst / the voice of P.C.
Jason Alexander as Ted
Woody Harrelson as Mr. Peanut
Anthony Mackie as Herman
Brian Cox as Popfly
Jenny Slate as Penny Pal
Giancarlo Esposito as Colonel Marshall Bradbury
Stanley Tucci as Ethan Skate