Netflix has a huge film series problem. The streamer can churn out TV franchises that keep fans coming back, from Love is Blind to Squid Game, but replicating the blockbuster movie has always remained elusive. Rian Johnson has somewhat found a footing with the most recent Knives Out installment, but Zack Snyder’s Army of the Dead and Rebel Moon never really took off.
So when the streamer announced Avengers: Endgame directors Joe and Anthony Russo — who had previously worked with Netflix on The Gray Man and both Extraction movies — would direct an ambitious sci-fi epic based on Simon Stalenhåg’s The Electric State, I was wary. In fact, I’m cited in the movie’s Wikipedia page as someone who “expressed concerns” that the first-look images “were confirmation that the film would seemingly be unfaithful to the original book.”
My concerns were, in fact, warranted. For the most part, The Electric State looks like a lot of other sci-fi action movies, with flat lighting and crowd-pleasing shot composition. But underneath its samey story and MCU-quip-a-thon dialogue is something that’s increasingly rare to find in movies with a similar standing: originality.
The Electric State establishes its emotional core before its dystopian world. Michelle (Millie Bobby Brown) is a doting older sister of her child prodigy brother Chris (Woody Norman), whose personality consists of using phrases like “you know, that’s actually theoretically possible” and a love of Kid Cosmo, an animated robot from a Saturday morning cartoon.
It’s only after Michelle promises Chris that they’ll “always be connected” that we finally get a look at the world they live in: an alternate reality where Walt Disney was able to invent robots with their own personalities (a risky move for the Russos, considering Disney is their new boss). But as these sentient beings evolved, they developed a desire for freedom. Led by “former Planter’s promotional robot, Mr. Peanut” (Woody Harrelson), bots around the world revolted, leading to a two-year conflict against the humans. It wasn’t until Steve Jobs-esque villain Ethan Skate (Stanley Tucci) invented the Neurocaster, a VR headset that allows humans to pilot drones. Now, Skate’s conglomerate Sentre is selling Neurocasters as escapism machines to the masses.
In an alternative 1992, Michelle is now on her own after a family tragedy and literally too cool for school — when all her fellow students put on their casters, she snarks she “has a condition where she only lives in reality.” But everything changes when a Kid Cosmo bot finds her, claiming to be inhabited by her long-lost brother.
The premise is genuinely fun, but much of the two-hour runtime is burdened by trying to fit into a Marvel formula. In trying to find her brother in the robot ghetto known as the Exclusion Zone, Michelle tracks down the drifter Keats (Chris Pratt) and his robot sidekick Herman (voiced by Anthony Mackie), whose nonstop bickering and one-liners get old very fast.
But as the story progresses, the other characters manage to break the story out of its well-formed rut. Giancarlo Esposito plays Colonel Marshall Bradbury, the bloodthirsty mercenary Skate contacts to quell this new robot activity. “I didn’t re-tiah,” he says in a thick Southern drawl, “I just ran outta bots to hunt.” Jenny Slate plays Penny Pal, a mail-delivery robot whose encyclopedic knowledge of addresses makes her very useful to the plot. Ke Huy Quan even appears as a doctor who aided Skate in a nefarious conspiracy.
Despite looking like Guardians of the Galaxy crossed with the worst parts of Ready Player One, those with moderate-to-severe cases of Marvel Fatigue may find something to like here. Millie Bobby Brown looks way too old to play Michelle — a bad omen for the upcoming Stranger Things Season 5 — but she does find moments of genuine pathos in between the rusty sheen. And the aesthetics may have deviated from the source material, but at least most scenes take place during in bright daylight. You can see everything that happens, but whether or not you care is another story.
The final epic showdown does a lot of grunt work on that front. Heartbreaking sacrifices, villain redemptions, and Michelle’s reunion with her brother all come one after another. By the time the credits rolled — to the embarrassingly on-the-nose “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Part One” by the Flaming Lips — it’s a toss-up as to whether or not the story was good. But what’s undeniable is that it was different, and in this day and age, that counts for a lot.
Maybe this time, Netflix will find its mass-appeal film series: the streamer has already commissioned a video game prequel. Of all its previous attempts, it’s certainly the most worthy, even if it isn’t the most nuanced.
