Directed by Anthony & Joe Russo
Written by Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely
Anthony and Joe Russo, brothers and once television directors, have shot up the Hollywood power rankings in the past decade due solely on their impressive work with Captain America: Winter Soldier and the Avengers franchise. What they were able to do in tandem with producer Kevin Feige in bringing together the Marvel Cinematic Universe will go down in history as one of franchise filmmaking’s greatest accomplishments. However, their track record beyond Marvel is not a good one, with two straight duds coming off the Marvel high with 2021’s Cherry and 2022’s The Gray Man, both star-driven messes made for streaming services. They return now with another blockbuster, star-driven vehicle for a streamer in The Electric State. So were they able to recapture their Marvel magic?
Based on the graphic novel by Simon Stalenhag, The Electric State follows Michelle (Millie Bobby Brown) in an alternate reality of the 1990s, where humans and robots have just come out of a long, grueling war over robot rights. Michelle is an orphan, but when a robot shows up on her doorstep, she is given hope that her genius brother Christopher may still be alive. Setting out on an adventure across the country in search of the doctor (Ke Huy Quan) who last saw Christopher alive, she encounters a rugged smuggler (Chris Pratt), who profits on nostalgia, stealing items from the exclusion zone, a large area in the American southwest where robots have been secluded from society. But what they discover is that the innovative tech from Ethan Skate (Stanley Tucci) may not be as altruistic as it appears.
The movie is ambitious, that is for darn sure. With a reported budget of $320 million, Netflix is betting big on The Electric State and the Russo brothers, a tentpole movie meant to drive new subscribers and existing subscribers alike. Whether they got their money’s worth will remain to be seen, but my initial impression is that this is a disaster. While the Marvel universe was able to seamlessly meld multiple storylines into a single, unified, and brilliant conclusion, The Electric State takes a ton of ideas and just a volume of “things” and does little to nothing with them. The themes and ideas are obvious (we’re blinded by and numbed by technology, when the real electric connection is between each other; evil tech giants, equal rights, etc.), but the execution has no passion, no heart, and perhaps the worst offense: no fun.
I’m willing to pass the judgement on the future of the Russo brothers after this one. Three strikes and your out of the good graces that their Marvel success earned them. Additionally, I’m not sure about Chris Pratt after this either. I’ve always liked him, so maybe he’s just bad at picking projects, but other than Guardians of the Galaxy, what does he really have on his resume that is good/well-respected? There’s a lot of Hollywood star power at waste here, and for the life of me I cannot see what they all saw in the script or production that made them want to sign onto such a lifeless project like this. Perhaps I need to check out the graphic novel, because there is obviously something there worthwhile, it just doesn’t seem to translate to this film.
The Electric State ends up being a mash up of a million things we’ve seen before, and oddly seems to collapse upon itself in the end. Mainly, the Russo’s appear inspired to try to match the family unit nostalgia of a Steven Spielberg movie and mix it with a dash of sci-fi ingenuity from Star Wars. Ultimately, none of it worked for me. It was at once too many ideas all at once and not enough of a focus to deliver on any of its goals and aspirations. It’s not nearly as fun, swashbuckling, and inventive as Star Wars, or as charming, polished or emotionally resonate as a Steven Spielberg production. It might be more closely compared to Ready Player One, which is one of Spielberg’s most uneven. Honestly, I felt so bludgeoned by the cacophony of “things” happening here. I was numb by the end, with no emotional effect or sense of entertainment.
Corndog Chats 