The Electric State
Dustin Chase
The Russo Brother’s latest film is a 300 million dollar kid’s movie. Let’s be honest: Anthony and Joe Russo have never made a good film. Even before they created cinematic gluttony with “Avengers Infinity War” and “Avengers Endgame,” their modest work “Welcome to Collinwood” or “You, Me & Dupree” wasn’t anything to throw awards at. The directing duo has retired from their Marvel exuberance, only to be given a blank check by Netflix for more surplus. Like 2024’s Razzie-nominated “Borderlands,” “The Electric State” is adapted from source material with no business on the big screen. The Russo’s borrow concepts and ideas from “E.T.,” “Ready Player One,” “Short Circuit,” “Star Wars,” and more, rather than creating something uniquely their own.
In 1990, before the war, the relationship between robots and humans was heading towards an inevitable showdown. Humans only see their electronic counterparts as subservient and disposable. The early 90s saw a devastating war that wasn’t going well for man until billionaire tech mogul Ethan Skate (Tucci) and his company Sentre made peace. Michelle (Brown), a promising future college student, lost her entire family in a car accident along with her brainiac younger brother Christopher (Woody Norman). His favorite TV character was the robot, Kid Cosmo, the large-headed smiling robot staring back at her, trying to convince her that Christopher was inside somehow.
The Russo's fascination with excess erodes the underlying message of 'get off your cell phone and enjoy the world around you.'
What’s evident about The Russo’s formula for “The Electric State” is their passion for 90’s era film and nostalgia. Nothing embodies this more than having Oscar-nominated composer Alan Silvestri (“Forest Gump,” “Contact,” “Practical Magic,” “Stuart Little”) deliver a score that encapsulates so many familiar notes. It’s one of the single highlights in an overall disappointing film. As our villain, Stanley Tucci is a repurposed Lex Luther, but the Gene Hackman version. Tucci has played a few as villains go, but nothing ecstatic with the power-hungry Ethan Skate. Pratt is a carbon copy of Quill from “Guardians of the Galaxy” with different hair. First billed because of his blockbuster status, he functions more as the generic comedy action hero to Brown’s first leading role in an action film.
Corny jokes like “I’m going to crack that shell,” delivered to Mr. Peanut (voiced by Woody Harrelson), plague the script throughout. There are so many varying ideas, plots, and “wouldn’t that be cool if…” that if you step back and look at all the chaos on the screen, you see an expensive mess. The film’s plot dissolves simply into the kind of robot war pandemonium you can find in any Transformers flick. “The Electric State” is, at best, a pacifier for younger kids who haven’t yet learned the difference between discardable popcorn movies and cinematic masterpieces, both of which Netflix is capable of.
Final Thought
The Russo Brothers again direct with exuberance over nuance, rotting our brains with cinematic sugar.