Let’s face it, the Russo brothers’ post-MCU career as co-directors in Cherry and The Gray Man lacked the same widespread praise seen in their winning trio of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. Before the two returns to MCU for Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars, they are now headlining a brand-new Netflix movie The Electric State, the streaming giant’s most expensive feature ever produced at reportedly $320 million.
At the time of writing, that would be the 13th most expensive movie, trailing just five million less than Avengers: Infinity War. A budget this big, coupled with the dystopian sci-fi angle adapted from Simon Stålenhag’s acclaimed 2018 illustrated novel of the same name that looks right from the Russo brothers’ wheelhouse and not to forget, a recognizable cast both on-screen and voice-only acting, it’s natural to have a high expectation here. Adding a cherry on top is the 1990s nostalgia, complete with yesteryear needle drops from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ Mary Jane’s Last Dance to Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch’s Good Vibrations.
The Electric State gets off to a mundane start as we are introduced to Michelle (Millie Bobby Brown) and her child-prodigy younger brother, Christopher (Woody Norman). But their strong sibling relationship is ruined one day when they are involved in a fatal car crash, killing everyone but she miraculously survives. The story here takes place in the 1990s era, where a series of montages bring us up to speed about how robots were initially produced to do “every job that humans didn’t want to do” until one day, an uprising occurs led by former Planters promotional bot Mr. Peanut (voiced by Woody Harrelson) cries for freedom.
This triggers a war between humanity and robots, which they fight for years until a Sentre tech billionaire Ethan Skate (Stanley Tucci) invents a helmet-like device called the Neurocaster, which is capable of mechanizing drone bodies by linking them directly to the human mind. The technology allows the human soldiers to finally win against the robots, forcing them to surrender and banish to Sentre’s Exclusion Zone.
The post-war era has since made humans become lazier (think Wall-E) as they are heavily dependent on technology (the Neurocasters are now become mass-produced, must-have items) to do the chores. In other words, these humans are just sitting in the comfort of their homes with the helmets on while their droid bodies perform the tasks.
Not for Michelle, who prefers to stick to reality. She is now an angry and rebellious teenager who lives with her foster parent and one night, she gets an unexpected visit from a robot of a once-popular Saturday morning cartoon character called Kid Combo (voiced by Alan Tudyk). The robot, which has the big, round yellow head of a Smiley-like face, means no harm and wants something from her. Well, long story short, they escaped and soon met a smuggler named Keats (Chris Pratt) and his wisecracking robot partner, Herman (voiced by Anthony Mackie). Trouble arises when a robot bounty hunter, Colonel Marshall Bradbury (voiced by Giancarlo Esposito) tracks them down for abetting the robots, which are illegal by law.
MCU’s screenwriting veterans Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely do not waste time getting into details through expository-heavy scenarios surrounding the co-existence of humans and robots in the alternate world of the1990s era. The earlier scene summarizes what we need to know before the story zeroes into Michelle’s long journey with the Kid Cosmo robot in search of an all-important doctor played by Ke Huy Quan. I like how seamless the CGI is seen in the robot designs with different shapes and sizes. And the way these robots occupy the same space as the human actors without looking like they are obviously on the giant green screen.
But meticulous special effects can only go so far if the movie lacks imaginative flair to make things more interesting. For a sci-fi movie about robot uprising and the Russo brothers’ attempt to emulate the look and feel of Amblin-style storytelling chronicling the cross-country adventure of Michelle and Kid Cosmo along with Keats and Herman, the stakes are surprisingly low. Make no mistake, there are a few action scenes here and there but none of them have the thrilling sense of propulsive visual prowess. The pace is erratic and at times, it tends to crawl to a near standstill, making the 128-minute length overstay its welcome long before it reaches its conclusion.
The biggest problem with The Electric State is how tedious the whole thing is. I mean, what’s the point of spending such a hefty amount of money making the CGI blend seamlessly but forgetting the utmost important things called entertainment and having fun with the source material? The story just cruises by and not even the cast can do much to save Markus and McFeely’s overall threadbare adapted screenplay. What a waste to see the potential of Millie Bobby Brown and Chris Pratt teaming up together but their chemistry is nearly non-existent.
Individually speaking, Brown’s character is a bland protagonist, whose otherwise rebellious and never-give-up nature is all surface-level. Pratt is being Pratt as usual – the kind of smug and sardonic character that you either love or hate him. Ke Huy Quan is barely making much of a lasting impression here as the elusive doctor, who served nothing more than spewing exposition later in the movie.
Casting Stanley Tucci to play a manipulative tech billionaire trying to control everything may have been the right choice, especially given his sneaky charisma. But his antagonist role is sadly undermined in this movie. Then, there’s Giancarlo Esposito, equally wasted in the role of a disappointingly one-note performance as an uncompromising colonel of a task force hunting down human offenders and rogue robots.
However, the voice acting fares better here, from Woody Harrelson’s steadfast Mr. Peanut to Anthony Mackie’s snarky Herman and Alan Tudyk’s brightly optimistic Kid Cosmo. So much for the big-budget Electric State that could have worked if not for the Russo brothers’ shockingly pedestrian direction, which makes me wonder if someone more qualified like Steven Spielberg helms the movie instead.
