Title – The Electric State (2025)

Directors – Anthony & Joe Russo (Avengers: Endgame)

Cast – Chris Pratt, Millie Bobby Brown, Stanley Tucci, Ke Huy Quan, Giancarlo Esposito (voices of) Woody Harrelson, Alan Tudyk

Plot – In an alternate reality where humans and robots remain at odds after a violent uprising, orphaned teenager Michelle (Bobby Brown) teams up with loner smuggler Keats (Pratt) to help track down her long lost brother.  

“I have a condition where I can only live in reality”

Review by Eddie on 28/03/2025

Before we go too far it’s worth taking note and considering that Netflix exclusive The Electric State cost a reported $320 million to make, easily placing it inside the top 20 movies of all time when it comes to production spend.

With that out of the way it’s not too hard to judge directing duo Anthony and Joe Russo’s (continuing on a cold streak that has followed them downstream since their Avengers heydays) star-studded adaptation of Simon Stålenhag beloved graphic novel as a colossal failure in almost all areas, as this paint by numbers sci-fi adventure fails to launch into an enjoyable or interesting affair.

Greeted with a wide ranging array of critical drubbings and mediocre at best audience reactions, there are many out there who don’t care or even know that State exists, an extremely curious outcome for a film that is jam-packed with possibilities, budgetary means to make any dreams become a reality and a collection of able-bodied and talented actors that all lower their colours in this instantly forgettable mash up of half-baked ideas and ingredients that have been cooked in far more memorable feature dishes.

Attempting to appease a wide-ranging audience from the young to the young at heart, State follows Millie Bobby Brown’s charisma free teenage orphan Michelle on a dangerous cross country journey with Chris Pratt’s generic smuggler with a hidden heart of gold Keats, all taking place in a universe of robots vs humans as she attempts to uncover the secret to the disappearance of her long lost brother who she believes is alive somewhere after years of assuming he was dead.

There is much within State that is just waiting to be picked, ripe to get stuck into in a variety of potentially appeasing ways but everything in the Russo’s listless adventure is left underdeveloped or ignored as we are instead stuck for the most part with two A-list celebrities who are seriously struggling to maintain their respective relevance and give us reason to suggest they’re as talented as they at times had appeared to be.

Continuing on the path that has many questioning her longevity outside of The Stranger Things bubble, Brown in particular is noticeably poor as the uninteresting and poorly developed Michelle.

Whether blame can be placed more at the feet of the Russo’s or screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, there’s no shying away from the fact Brown has been caught wanting in most of her recent work and she adds little to helping the cause of this huge waste of money.

Not fairing much better (and sporting an early contender for 2025’s worst feature film haircut) is a sleepwalking Chris Pratt who has started to well and truly merge into an unlikeable and boring amalgamation of his Guardians of the Galaxy and Jurassic World persona’s that find him at the career crossroads left with two choices, continuing on down the same old path or attempting to do something more with his skillset than the bare minimum.

It will be interesting to see what choice the once incessantly likable star will take.

No one here comes out on top, the Russo’s now have major question marks over their directing choices (making all more nervous about Marvel’s high profile new Avengers outings), supporting stars such as Stanley Tucci, Ke Huy Quan and a someone please for the love of all things good stop Giancarlo Esposito all add nothing and Netflix must surely be wondering how they can waste such large sums of monies in one foul swoop.

On the matter of Giancarlo Esposito, is he not yet bored of playing the same role he mastered in Breaking Bad?

Whether it’s a Far Cry video game, key roles in hit TV series such as The Mandalorian or dull robotic turns in big features such as this or Captain America, The Boys, Megalopolis or Abigail, Esposito is the Jason Statham of generic bad guy’s 101 and surely Hollywood would do well to shop around for a baddie to hire for the next go around?

Saved somewhat by its collection of great ideas and concepts and some unique visuals, State has glimmers of what might have been amongst all the sad and sorry outcomes we get to consume from a project that promised so much on paper.

Final Say –

Proving once more they’re masters of wasting huge sums of money on projects no one really cares for, Netflix’s latest bizarre attempt at creating large-scale spectacle to match it with the best is a mostly pointless and boring exercise that lowers the colours of all involved.

2 Twinkie sweats out of 5