I think it’s safe to assume, based on the stars involved and genre buttons pushed, thatThe Electric Statewill be a big hit for Netflix in viewership terms. This saddens me. It’s not just that it’s not very good – that in itself is more frustrating than saddening. It’s thatthis movie’s flavor of not very good might actually be a little harmfulto that cultural concept we call “The Movies.”
The Electric Stateresembles a fun, creative blockbuster, in the way that a knockoff resembles the genuine article. It looks like it’d be expensive, makes some clear design choices based on its sci-fi worldbuilding, and features actors you recognize doing things you might recognize them for (Stanley Tucci saying “stuffed peppers,” for example). You might think you’re seeing the real thing if you don’t look too closely. Hell, you might even enjoy your time with it, and come away wondering why reviews like mine were so harsh.
Which is exactly what makes knockoffs so damaging to what’s being copied. Films like this put most of their energy toward convincing you it’s a real movie, that what you’re feeling is real fun. If it succeeds, and you come away thinking this is what a movie is, then the whole moviegoing enterprise is cheapened. You might not even notice that you think less of movies than you did going in, but you do. So let me be absolutely clear:movies can be, and should be, better than this.
In The Electric State, Sci-Fi Concepts That Should Be Cool Are Just Empty
It’s Hard Not To Be Cynical About These Choices
I’ll show you what I mean.The ElectricStateis set in an alternate 1990s, in which robots were a normal part of everyday life for decades. When they became conscious enough to advocate for their own rights, it sparked a war with humans that, initially, we were on the verge of losing. Enter tech mogul Ethan Skate (Stanley Tucci), whose breakthrough in neural links that allowed humans to pilot mechanized bodies turned the tide. The robots lost, and the survivors were banished to an exclusion zone in the desert.
The Electric Stateis based on the 2018 illustrated novel of the same name by Simon Stålenhag. I haven’t read it, and so can’t address how it changed from page to screen, but I have to imagine it’s much more substantive than this adaptation.
Sounds kinda cool, right? Sometimes it is. This world’s robots were popularized in the ’50s and carried a kind of retro-futuristic aesthetic ahead with them, andthe filmmakers had some fun with the design of the individual machines. This contrasts with the impersonal slickness of Skate’s Sentre Technologies products, which have been repurposed for everyday life and are now ubiquitous. Teens have school through neurocasters (but still in person, for some reason), and adults use them to bifurcate their brains, delegating work to their drone body while part of them takes in a simulated fantasy.
In execution, though,The Electric State’s sci-fi is muddled and empty, smashed together with references toour'90s for seemingly no reason other than to press a certain demographic’s nostalgia button. Does it make much sense to have a world with sentient AI and neural projection where computers still look like boxy PCs and AOL still announces that “you’ve got mail”? And the robots' consumer culture references, classically fertile ground, serve no larger purpose I can find. The closest I get is the film suggesting it’s better when there’s a variety of branding on display, instead of just one company’s stuff.
This emptiness is a common feature of such fraud films. Contrast it with last year’sFalloutTV show, a reference point that will inevitably occur to you while watchingThe Electric State,which similarly combined ’50s-inspired futurism with a desert-set, Western-inflected, post-apocalyptic landscape. In those design choices, cohesive and compellingly realized, you’ll find plenty of commentary on the sinister ideology underlying that sanitized, corporatized vision of America. Here, you’ll find little more than a reason forMillie Bobby Brown’s look to echo Eleven and Chris Pratt’s look to echo Star Lord.
The Electric State’s Storytelling Isn’t Just Flawed, It’s Insulting
And The Russos Really Should Know Better
Another dead giveaway is typically found in the dialogue.The Electric Stateis loaded with exposition of various kinds, and you’ll recognize it by its awkwardness. My favorite plot-related example comes early, as protagonist Michelle (Brown) verbalizes her discovery of a package label in her car trunk for no good reason. But the most embarrassing one is undeniably Pratt’s smuggler Keats yelling “Clap on!” before then clapping to turn his lights on.
Then there’s the storytelling, which is what I find most insulting. These movies aren’t typically hot messes with missing scenes or major plot holes;they know how to approximate a functioning narrative. But being interesting,genuinelyinteresting, is hard. Scenes in this film exist solely to transparently plant a seed, only for the “payoff” to happen immediately. A flashback shows Michelle’s private handshake with her brother Christopher (Woody Norman), so we believe his imminent return in robot form in the present. Michelle dreams of a figure obscured by the camera, who she then remembers the instant it’s dramatically relevant.
It’s not thatThe Electric Statedoesn’t have things going for it. Even if the overall vision is flawed, the VFX work that went into realizing it is often great.
This is as elementary and as lazy as story structure gets. If a real movie in this vein might be a puzzle, showing us a few pieces to keep us activated but waiting to reveal how they all fit together,The Electric Stateis a train of dominoes. And sinceJoe and Anthony Russoare experienced enough to know what an interesting movie is supposed to look like, they shoot the introduction of each domino like a moment of intrigue, and the connecting of two dominoes like a clever reveal.
So, even worse:a train of dominoes assembled live in front of you, over two hours, by an over-theatrical stage magician.After the third or fourthta-daa, you want to throttle him, but he just keeps doing it.
It’s not thatThe Electric Statedoesn’t have things going for it. Even if the overall vision is flawed, the VFX work that went into realizing it is often great. Of the robots, I particularly enjoyed Jenny Slate’s politely violent mail robot Penny Pal, and there’s a gag near the end related to Keats' robot partner-in-crime that I found very funny. It’s not an out-and-out terrible film. Butif you watch it and are inclined to consider it passable, please raise your bar.The movies will ultimately thank you.
The Electric State
Michelle, an orphan in a robot-filled alternate 1990s, discovers her brother may still be alive after a mysterious robot visit. Teaming up with a smuggler and his sidekick, she ventures into the Exclusion Zone, only to uncover sinister forces behind her brother’s fate.
