The Electric State

The Electric State wants to be a requiem in retro-futurist tones, a tale of loss and wanderings, robots with forlorn eyes, and a girl drifting through the ash-heap of civilisation. But though the frame is stunning and the budget considerable, the film slips through the fingers like vapour.

The Russo brothers summon their usual largesse of scale, but seem uninterested in the subtler contours of feeling. The performances are hemmed in by the architecture of the film. Millie Bobby Brown, oddly airbrushed and disconcertingly polished for someone meant to carry the ache of memory, never quite finds the soul of the part. Her face, perhaps shaped more by surgeons than experience, distracts from the emotional weight the role asks of her.

The robot companion, tender in design and nearly mute, is meant to be the beating heart. Instead, it feels like window-dressing for a story that can't commit to intimacy. There are fragments that glint, an abandoned cinema, a voice on a forgotten radio, but they aren't allowed to resonate.

I watched it unfold with admiration for its mechanics and a growing indifference to its meaning. The Electric State has all the signs of a journey, except the feeling of having gone anywhere at all.

Like other user reviews I can say this is no epic or a particularly memorable movie but it's not bad. I have not read the book so cannot speak to it's faithfulness to the original story but the dialogue is funny at times. I actually find chris pratts performance better than in most movies. More self deprecating and with nuanced quirkiness. Its an action/adventure movie so i never really understand why critics hold these romps to the standard of cinema. This is not cinema, this is simply a good action/adventure flick with some funny bits. Its not a dark movie but not overly campy either. You can absolutely see where the budget went. The cgi is flawless and plentiful which i always enjoy.

The Electric State is actually a very good concept, but its execution is incredibly rushed, with no real character or world development.

The cast is incredible and the visuals are fantastic, but this really needed to be a limited series. Two hours is nowhere near enough time for an unorthodox story like this.

The limited robots we meet seem silly and ineffective, so a more developed backstory could have really served to make this world much more realistic and menacing. But it seems they took numerous shortcuts in the story to move it along and finish it a movie timelength. A perfect example of what they could have done is Sweettooth, another very unique Netflix property that has much higher ratings.

It's hard not to have seen the bad reviews that seem to be on all the news streams about this film being a disappointment or just bad. If you love movies and read the gossip about upcoming films it is almost impossible to avoid the hate but it's just not right this isn't high theatre and it's not a perfect movie but it is by no means a bad film, there is some truly good aspects to what is a emotional romp through retro science fiction.

Don't sit down and expect an epic movie that will change the world but not all movies need to be this, some just need to take you on a journey and let your brain and emotions have a refreshing experience this is what electric state is it's a vacation for the soul that is enjoyable, simple and freeing in a time when every other film seems to be a noble and worthy movie about people or times that, as important as they are to tell, are not the most escapist of experiences.

So give Electric State a go it won't make you a better person from watching it but it will give you a sci-fi romp that passes a couple of hours and won't leave you thinking the world and people in it are doomed!

Honestly, I guess this film is aimed at the 5-10 age group, and I think that makes it fine....ok....not too awful etc etc.

For a background film while you cook, it's ok. Difficult to follow anyhow when you sit and concentrate.

With the amount of well known names in this film, and the fact I love sci-fi, I was truly expecting and hoping for so much better.

People giving this a ten? Really? Have you never watched a film before, or think this is the height of sci-fi?

Acting for me was all good, even MBB whom I'm not a fan of. It's the story that lets it down. Lack of cohesion, lack of direction, absolute lack of compassion for any of the characters. :-(