Okay, so Netflix dropped The Electric State, a sci-fi thing with a price tag of $320 million, and wow, is it a mess.
Before Joe and Anthony Russo got huge with Marvel, they did comedies. Think You, Me, and Dupree or Arrested Development. That light touch worked well when they jumped into the Marvel world. Iron Man already had a sense of humor, and Avengers went even further. For years, Marvel movies had this funny-but-fantastic vibe, which was different from DC's darker stuff. The DC movies were always super serious, had way too much money pumped into them, and were filled with brooding scenes. I personally liked the Russo's Captain America movies. Avengers: Infinity War was good, but I didn't care for Avengers: Endgame. The Russo brothers guided Marvel to make lots of money.
But watching The Electric State, I was wondering what happened to the guys who directed those Marvel movies. I had the same thought watching their other Netflix movie, The Gray Man, which was boring. How did the guys who balanced the Marvel movies so well create something so serious and dull? The Gray Man was forgettable, but The Electric State actually could have used some of that comedy. It's a silly story, and if you don't handle it lightly, it can be annoying.
The movie is very, very loosely based on a book by Simon Stålenhag with the same name. It's set in an alternate 1990s where robots and humans are at war. These aren't just any robots. They were around since the 1950s, built by Disney. They did all sorts of jobs, like delivering mail and building houses. Then, they became aware and wanted to be free. This led to protests, then war. (The movie even shows Bill Clinton signing a treaty with a giant robot Mr. Peanut.) Humans won using drones controlled with headsets. After the war, some tech guy, Ethan Skate (played by Stanley Tucci), sold that tech to everyone so they could escape into virtual reality. The robots that survived were sent to a desert prison.
The story's about Michelle (Millie Bobby Brown). She's had a rough life; her parents died, and she lost her little brother, Chris (Woody Norman), in a car crash. A robot that looks like Kid Cosmo, a cartoon Chris used to love, shows up and says he’s Chris—or, at least, his mind is being controlled from somewhere. Michelle and Cosmo go on a journey to find Chris. They team up with John Keats (Chris Pratt), who used to be a soldier but is now a black market dealer. He and his robot partner, Herman (voiced by Anthony Mackie), sneak stuff in and out of the robot prison. Since robots and humans aren’t supposed to be together, they’re chased by drone soldiers led by Colonel Bradbury (Giancarlo Esposito), who hates robots.
It's a crazy idea. The robots in the story aren't just regular robots; they're old brand characters. There's Mr. Peanut (voiced by Woody Harrelson), a mailman bot called Penny Pal (Jenny Slate) that can be deadly. There's also a baseball machine called Pop Fly (Brian Cox), a magician named Perplexo (Hank Azaria), a runaway football helmet (Rob Gronkowski), a barber chair with scissors, and even a piano-playing taco.
You'd think that some of that stuff would be funny, but the Russos play it straight. Too straight. It's like they are scared of making a comedy. Did they not like what people said about the Marvel movies being too funny? Or maybe they wanted to say something deep about intolerance, tech, and mind control. It makes you wonder if the story about robots wanting to be free and respected is something personal to them.
They focused so much on making the world seem real that they should have focused on making the characters likable. Trying to do that was a bad idea. Honestly, the Adam Sandler film Pixels, which featured video games coming to life, sounds better. Pixels knew it was dumb and fun. Sandler would have understood that someone yelling, 'You broke the treaty, Mr. Peanut,' would be hilarious and not a tense moment.
Millie Bobby Brown, who was great in Enola Holmes, plays it straight, too. She’s a good actress, but drama doesn't work in this movie. It feels bad watching her work so hard on a silly story.
The style used in The Electric State, with its dark colors and junky robots, is just odd. The Russos' directing is okay, but it doesn't make the world feel creative. (Do they know how to introduce a character any other way than showing their feet?)? Can they film a handshake without cutting every second? Even though the designs are different, the action scenes aren't anything special. They're just robots and drones fighting. Penny Pal throws out letters, and Pop Fly shoots baseballs, but it's all kind of bland. You wish the action was like Transformers or Pacific Rim. Even Real Steel, a film about robots fighting, did it better, and it takes more than just money to produce something like that.
The Electric State cost $320 million, which is a lot. Paying people isn't bad, and the price tag shouldn't matter if the movie is good. (I bought Waterworld on 4K, and I'm a George Miller fan.) It makes you question: They paid $320 million for this?! Didn't Netflix try to stop this? Studio notes aren't always a bad. Yes, making giant robots real costs money and there's actors in voice acting that need paying, and there's music like Flaming Lips’ “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots” and an slowed-down version of Oasis’s “Wonderwall. But, it's insane to spend so much money on a movie that looks this bad.