The Electric State Movie Review: It Presents Itself as a Work With Great Visual and Thematic Potential!

The Electric State is a science fiction film written in four hands by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely. If you love the 90s, the stories of robots, Mille Bobby Brown, and the Russo Brothers – directors behind four of the greatest Marvel giants – on Netflix, there is a film for you. It’s called The Electric State, and it’s a science fiction story directed by Anthony and Joe Russo and starring Stanger Things star Millie Bobby Brown along with a fun Chris Pratt and Oscar winner Ke Huy Quan. Available on Netflix from March 14th, The Electric State it is an adventure story, a journey of discovery, a battle between good and evil but above all a beautiful reflection on the themes of brotherly love, death and, more than anything else, on the importance of human contact in an era dominated by technology. Set in an alternative version of the nineties, this film follows the life of an orphaned teenager who ventures into the American West in search of his little brother, believed dead, in the company of a robot, an awkward smuggler but with a good heart and of the helper of the latter, a robot with a thousand surprises. The industrial music of Nine Inch Nails, where the most aggressive rock marries electronic sounds, and cult productions of Japanese animation, such as Ghost in the Shell by Mamoru Oshii, they seemed to perfectly grasp the spirit of the time, split between hopes and concerns related to the IT revolution and an increasingly automated society.

A trend to which even the Hollywood dream factory could not remain indifferent, starting from the first timid attempts to Johnny Mnemonic up to the planetary success of Matrix. It refers precisely to that decade and these issues. The Electric State, a new science fiction adventure, is available on Netflix starting March 14th. Based on the illustrated book by the Swedish artist Simon Stålenhag, the film looks at cyberpunk dystopia through the colored lenses of modern cinecomics, relying on a creative team made up of names linked to some of the most important Marvel Studios productions (the diptych formed by Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame). The Electric State it is the last effort of the award-winning company led by the brothers Anthony and Joe Russo, who direct yet another script written by the writers Christopher Markus is Stephen McFeely, their assiduous collaborators (in addition to the various works carried out under the aegis of the House of Ideas, the four have also created together the forgettable action thriller The Gray Man).

The Electric State Movie Review: The Story Plot

The plot of The Electric State takes place in an alternative reality, where the technology of the 90s has developed in a science fiction way. In this context, the Sentre Neurocaster viewer allows people to split their consciousness so that they can simultaneously perform their duties, remotely piloting anthropomorphic drones, and escape from daily tribulations in a heavenly virtual reality. The same technology allowed the US government years earlier to stop the terrible revolt of robots, no longer willing to work as slaves for humans. This is the world in which young Michelle (Millie Bobby Brown), an orphan who thinks she has lost the rest of her family in a tragic traffic accident, at least until she shows up at her Cosmo door, a strange robot. The small artificial being claims to be controlled by his brother Christopher (Woody Norman), who actually survived the accident. The girl and her new metal friend will have to embark on an insidious journey through the No Entry Zone, where the rebel robots have been exiled, to find the mysterious doctor with glasses (Ke Huy Quan), the only one who can reveal what happened to Christopher.

In an alternative and retro-futuristic reality, we find ourselves in the 90s with Michelle, a rebellious girl who struggles to find her place in a dystopian society. At one time, robots with a similar appearance to cartoons coexisted peacefully with human beings, at least until the Great War, which erupted when robots rebelled peacefully in the name of their inner freedom, determined to break the chains of slavery self-imposed by beings humans, who considered them simple pieces of metal, devoid of rights or personality. After the failed revolt, culminating in a direct clash with humans, the surviving robots were confined to the mysterious Exclusion Zone, a desert area sealed off from the rest of the world: an inaccessible place for humans and, at the same time, an open-air prison for rebel machines. During the war, Michelle loses everything. A traffic accident takes away the whole family: the parents and the younger brother, a little math genius with whom he had a deep bond. Marked by pain, the girl develops a deep refusal for technology and spends her childhood moving from one family home to another, without ever finding a real place to call home.

Everything changes radically when, one night, he receives the visit of Cosmo, a sweet and mysterious robot who claims to be Christopher, the younger brother whom she believed was dead. Determined to discover the truth and reunite with her brother, Michelle embarks on a journey through the southwest of the United States to the Exclusion Zone. To accompany it is Cosmo, and together they intend to track down the only person who seems to know the truth: Dr. Amherst, the scientist who had declared Christopher dead. On her journey, Michelle runs into Keats, an eccentric outlaw and low-ranking smuggler, accompanied by her inseparable robotic companion, Herman. While wary of each other, Michelle and Keats find themselves forced to join forces to cross the Exclusion Zone, the last refuge of robots banished from human society. Here, between encounters with unusual animatronic allies and unexplored lands, Michelle begins to understand that behind the disappearance of Christopher lies a much greater threat than she could have ever imagined.

The Electric State Movie Review and Analysis

The Electric State is not a masterpiece but it is a film that, in its simplicity, manages to do what many more complicated titles fail: to keep the viewer’s attention high from start to finish and to give the public a dynamic, very pleasant story, perfectly balanced between lightness and depth but which, above all, manages to get straight to the heart of a vast audience. This film is perfect both for the sci-fi enthusiast and for those who do not particularly like this kind of story and will find themselves in front of a story from which he will be surprised. Behind an apparently simple and not so original story there is a sub-plot that bases its foundations on universal and very current concepts, and this can only be a trump card together with the great, all-American ability to know how to use irony right, suitable for everyone and precisely for this reason destined to conquer a very large audience.

This film, in addition to entertaining, manages to shift attention to the importance of the sense of humanity in a world where technology seems to have managed to erase all traces of it. This is precisely his final message as well as his most interesting aspect. And so, telling the journey of a girl in search of her little brother between adventures, struggles between robots and 90s memorabilia – which will warm the hearts of anyone who has grown up in this decade – The Electric State becomes a reminder of the important values of life and to this deep message but launched with extreme lightness, one cannot remain indifferent.

Sometimes, witnessing films of this type, I wonder how it is possible that the production companies still commit errors of this magnitude in 2024-25. It almost seems to me that the great producers of the main cinemas have not yet fully understood what it means to make a film with a capital “F”, nor have they developed the ability to recognize when a script is ready to be brought to the big screen and when, on the other hand, it would need further work. In the end, it is the producers who invest the money and, logically, they should want to do it to make good films, not bad films, right? So, how can it be that in 2025, we are still faced with works such as The Electric State? Even an entertainment film can be well done. Before a feature film enters actual production — with the search for settings, casting, definition of costumes, soundtrack, and technical crew — someone must have believed that the script was solid, well-structured, and ready to be transposed on the big or small screen. Still, it surprises me that someone has evaluated this script as ready for the set without recognizing the need for further revisions and rewrites to refine it and make it up to a well-built cinematographic work.

There are parts of the script that have been cut, but I don’t think the problem is traceable to it. In fact, in my opinion, if there is an obvious defect in The Electric State, it is not so much about the direction or the technical aspect, but rather its very root: the script, the foundation on which everything stands, but which, on the contrary, cannot make watching the film truly engaging. Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, despite their valid past cinematographic works, lose their way, getting lost in the writing process and making a watered-down and superficial script. Looking closely at the film, you can see how incredibly easy it is for the characters to move from point A to point B, how improbable it is that the protagonist reaches the Exclusion Zone without obstacles and that she finds all the answers to her questions and mystery with equal ease linked to his brother.

The Exclusion Zone, which should have been a place full of tension and suggestion, is presented to us without epicity or empathic force (both from the direction and the script), resulting in no charm. The same problem afflicts the characters, starting from the protagonist, outlined stereotypically and reduced to her dimension as a young man tormented by her inner drama. The way Michelle’s character is developed on a dramaturgical level cancels any potential narrative interest, especially as regards her relationship with the brother-robot. The script does not build truly empathetic moments between the two characters, depriving the viewer of any emotional involvement and preventing him from becoming attached to their story. The Electric State lacks empathy and emotion, and without this essential ingredient, a film cannot work. Why, if we don’t care about the characters, how could we ever care about their story? If the writers cannot make the characters or the Exclusion Zone interesting, at the same time, they also fail to give depth to the themes dealt with within the film.

The first and most evident is that linked to the concept of family, understood as the need to have people who know how to love you for who you are. Michelle, in this sense, has lost her family and finds herself alone, forced to move from one family home to another, suffering mistreatment and disinterest, as we see in the first scenes of the film. The journey he undertakes is, after all, a search for belonging, the hope of finding a group of people able to love and accept him. Alongside this theme, we find a social reflection on our unhealthy relationship with technology, developed more effectively, especially through the final monologue and some scenes scattered along the narration. In this world, people are constantly immersed in the “neurocaster”, devices that transport them in a sort of virtual reality, making them live more inside this space than in reality. Absorbed by this technology, humans forget the outside world and the importance of social and emotional contact with others. I neurocasters that they are nothing more than a metaphor for our augmented reality viewers, social media, and smartphones, tools that for many have become a parallel dimension in which to live, often at the expense of real life. In the film, the neurocaster is shown as a drug addict, underlining how the abuse of this technology can lead to the dehumanization and alienation of the individual.

The story told in the graphic novel is quite interesting, thanks also to the topics covered, and would have deserved a more accurate transposition. However, from a technical and directorial point of view, the film stands out for its high visual quality, with a distinctly cinematographic flavor. The direction of the Russo brothers proves valid, although it does not live up to their works related to the MCU universe. The Russo manage to make the narration fluid, even without instilling that sense of epicity that would have been expected, especially in the sequences set in the Exclusion Zone. Here, the journey could have been described more engagingly, both emotionally and sensory. Despite these narrative shortcomings, the Russo brothers confirm their ability on a directorial and visual level, creating well-orchestrated action sequences full of rhythm. In particular, together with the special effects team, they managed to make robots with a highly iconic aesthetic, to the point that the robots are more charismatic than the human characters themselves.

We can say that robotic figures such as Cosmo, Herman, and many inhabitants of the shopping center populated by machines are more captivating and fun than the protagonists in flesh and blood, even assuming a greater three-dimensionality. What the Russo brothers, however, cannot do is make the interpretations of the actors interesting, neither of those who interpret the good guys nor of those who give life to the bad guys. Millie Bobby Brown, Chris Pratt, Stanley Tucci, and Giancarlo Esposito offer performances far below those to which they had accustomed us, with a particular disappointment for the last two. Giancarlo Esposito once again plays the role of the villain, a role that is now tiring. It is natural to ask: Why do you keep accepting these characters? Wouldn’t it be interesting to see him try his hand at a completely different role? Stanley Tucci, on the other hand, plays a role that is both relevant and marginal, playing a villain who, due to an in-depth script, is difficult to characterize. Chris Pratt also offers a rather opaque performance, without ever shining. As for Millie Bobby Brown, she continues to look like an actress mainly linked to the world of Netflix. She has not yet managed to find a real dimension as a film performer and, to date, the only character she has been able to interpret convincingly remains Eleven. In “The Electric State”, the young English actress cannot go beyond just two facial expressions, without ever really getting into the shoes of her character. His performance, therefore, is the least successful of his career until 2025.

The Electric State Movie Review: The Last Words

After a war between robots and humans, the teenager Michelle sets off in search of her brother, who is believed to be dead, bringing spectators into a pop, colorful and almost fairytale world, full of emotions and themes that, since the nineties, have been more current than ever. The Electric State is the perfect demonstration of how a handful of recall names and a stratospheric budget do not make a good film on their own. Everything in the film suggests a mild commercial operation designed at the table and performed with approximation in all its parts, from the repechage of the most popular themes of contemporary science fiction to the assembly of a cast of movie stars that, placed next to the other, are only badly assorted. The result is a work with a superficial texture, of the characters with whom it is impossible to empathize, and an aesthetic that – apart from robot design – could easily be that of a series B film.

Cast: Woody Norman, Millie Bobby Brown, Ann Russo, Greg Cromer, Vince Pisani, Camrus Johnson, Juan Uribe Brandi, Kurt Loder, Alan Tudyk, Roshni Edwards

Director: Russo Brothers

Streaming Platform: Netflix

Filmyhype.com Ratings: 3/5 (three stars)