‘The Electric State’ stars Chris Pratt, Millie Bobbie Brown and robots
A teenager (Millie Bobby Brown) goes looking for her brother with the help of a smuggler (Chris Pratt) and a bunch of robots in “The Electric State.”
With artificial intelligence being such a hot-button topic, it does seem like the right moment for a salient man-vs.-machines film. By the time the singing animatronic bass and He-Man Zagnuts make their appearance, it’s pretty clear “The Electric State” is not that movie.
“Avengers” directors Joe and Anthony Russo craft a nifty alt-history world with this sci-fi adventure (★★ out of four; rated PG-13; streaming now on Netflix) geared toward kids and parents alike. Yet the middling mix of “Ready Player One,” “E.T.” and “A.I.” is Spielberg-lite without any real wonder, saddling stars Chris Pratt and Millie Bobby Brown with familiar personalities in a drab dystopia.
Based on Simon Stålenhag’s 2018 illustrated novel, “Electric State” posits that Walt Disney back in the day pioneered the creation of robots to help mankind and do menial tasks we didn’t want to do. The ‘bots began to fight for their rights and sparked a revolution and a war was won thanks to billionaire tech guy Ethan Skate (Stanley Tucci) creating mechanical soldiers piloted by human minds.
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In 1994 of this reimagined America, Michelle (Brown) is a rebellious foster teen who lost her family in a car accident and wants nothing to do with people, most of whom mainly exist in a VR stupor powered by Skate’s Apple-esque mega company. One night, she’s visited by a weird smiling robot based on a cartoon she and her genius younger brother Chris (Woody Norman) watched as kids. It’s an odd sight, as machines have been outlawed and are now imprisoned in a huge walled-off Exclusion Zone in the Southwest. But this Cosmo ‘bot, using TV catchphrases, tells Michelle that he’s really Chris and that her brother is still alive, somewhere.
The key to locating her bro is in the Exclusion Zone, and Michelle finds a way in courtesy of scruffy ex-soldier Keats (Pratt), a black marketeer who smuggles kitschy lunchboxes and vintage firearms out of there and to his customers. They go on a quest that introduces a host of colorful robots, led by the wise but wary Mr. Peanut (Woody Harrelson). But that alliance puts our heroes in the sights of antagonists such as Colonel Bradbury (Giancarlo Esposito), a machine-hating military man who does his drone dirty work from his cush home library.
The Russos’ retrofuturistic landscape is populated with computer-generated machine characters and their famous voices, like Keats’ sidekick Herman (Anthony Mackie), old-school baseball mascot Pop Fly (Brian Cox) and mail girl Penny Pal (Jenny Slate). Even Rob Gronkowski gets a very on-brand role.
As do the movie’s two leads. Pratt can do lovable rogue in his sleep at this point, and Brown’s got a spunky young woman down pat. Both of them have some good lines and emotional moments but they mostly feel plug-and-play rather than mining anything new and exciting.
“Electric State” also brings up a bunch of interesting themes, from how technology can consume and divide us to what we consider “human.” The movie comes close to being a little subversive and digging into real nuance – especially when it comes to mankind kicking out robots, then using tech to become metal avatars themselves – only to default to a zany gag or earnest sentimentality.
The film is also a strange beast from a nostalgia standpoint: There’s a super high-tech society still using old Macs and email? Also, as someone who lived through those decades, there was never this much of a thirst for all things ‘80s back in ’94. (Though bits are admittedly appreciated here in 2025.)
The Russos have made some seriously awesome Marvel films. Their other directorial efforts since, mainly in the streaming space, have been lacking: “The Gray Man” was a middling spy flick, while drug drama “Cherry” was at least a thought-provoking mess. “The Electric State” is more of the same, an ambitiously starry effort with fits of inspiration that doesn’t hang completely together. Like Cosmo, you just need to grin and bear it.
