The Electric State Movie Review

The Electric State is a 2025 science fiction action adventure film that is based off of the illustrated novel of the same name created by Simon Stålenhag, who also created the novel Tales From The Loop, which was adapted into its own great Amazon Prime series.

Staring Chris Pratt and Millie Bobby Brown in the main roles, as well as Stanley Tucci, Ke Huy Quan, and Giancarlo Esposito live action roles. But not only that, we get amazing voice over credits with the likes of Anthony Mackie and Woody Harrelson and many more.

The story of the movie is that of a alternate 1990s, overrun with advanced machines that perform manual labor and act as mascots before they begin to revolt and wish for robot rights. A parallel to civil rights movements that eventually leads to a violent war and robots being forced away into camps and hiding. But while this is going on, a technology company called Sentre has produced the "Neurocaster" a highly advanced virtual reality headset that was designed to allow humanity to control robots and fight in the war, but becomes repurposed into an every day commodity. Think of the novel/movie Ready Player One.

The world becomes covered in massive towers that connect the network of people to the Neurocaster in a montage of news clips and world building that makes up a bulk of the first few minutes. Very quickly settling us into this new world and giving us all of the information we need to begin.

We start off the proper movie in the year of 1994, years after the war ended and after the network of Neurocasters have become a part of daily life.

Most humans are constantly wearing their Neurocasters, including Michelle Green's (Millie Bobby Brown) foster father, who tries to parent her through a robotic avatar while his human body is sitting and rotting on a chair just a few feet away. Nobody wishes to be "alive" in the real world and rather be in a constant state of fantasy and delusion where they can be anywhere, anyone they wish.

Michelle goes to school and we see the future where Neurocasters have become mandatory in class, all of the students putting them on to study while Michelle refuses and is sent to the principal's office. She wishes to live in reality and stay away from robotics and technology where she can, while her principal even suggests Neurotherapy with a Neurocaster. The humans in this world have become SO reliant on the tech that they do not even know how to function or come up with solutions without them. While in the office, we learn that her parents and younger brother all died in a car accident when colliding with a deer, which is what leads to her being alone with a foster father and being the rebellious teenager that she is.

One night, she has a nightmare where she remebers the accident, waking up in time to hear some noise that caused her to see what it was. When she goes to investigate, she is met with a small robot who breaks into her home. Any attempt at waking up her foster father and removing the Neurocaster fails, so she attempts to hide under her bed while wielding a screwdriver of some kind to defend her.

It's at this point that I really wish to give credit to the design and production team of this film. Seeing the robot so up close and moving around with incredible sound design just shows the amount of love, attention, and detail this movie gives the focus of the story. Robots that are so incredibly well designed and feel real in this world. A serious amount of love with the effects of this movie (even if the reported budget of $320 million is WAY too high) that once again shows a serious amount of detail.

The robot is friendly, only wishing to repair his speech box. He is a ficitonal cartoon character named Cosmo, who was Michelle's little brother's favorite cartoon character. He is only able to speak in clips of a fictional cartoon show. Think Bumblebee in the first few Transformers movies, and it's similar to that.

Michelle's foster father wakes up and tries to report the robot to the police, leading to a comedic brawl and escape to a site of a former battle, showcasing a gorgeous setting of robotic corpses that look more like statues and ruined monuments than corpses. A touch of world building and cinematography that comes straight from the illustrated novel.

Michelle talks to the robot she ran away with, seeming to think that the robot is controlled by her dead brother, trying to figure out if there is a way to save him or even figure out what happened to him. We get the reveal of a doctor played by the always delightful Ke Huy Quan revealing that Michelle's brother died, and that he is the one who knows what really happened.

Michelle and the robot figure out that they have to travel to New Mexico, in the "Exclusion Zone" which is where robots are kept in a prison/encampment type of way. They hop onto a train and travel there, ending up by a very rundown motel where you see someone lying on the street with their Neurocaster on, almost looking like a drug addict. A horrific looking sight with his body twitching uncontrollably with ruined looking skin. A very dark and disturbing addition to the world and story that is very welcome, if a bit cynical.

I won't go into spoiler or story territory, as this movie is one I do think is interesting and fun. A very fun and very creative movie that does a great job at expanding upon the material of art that told a great story without any dialogue or narrative. This movie really did deserve to do well, as it is mostly original and unique in a world full of franchises and unoriginal ideas. Sure, it has elements that I am able to compare to other films and stories such as Ready Player One, Logan, Transformers, and others. It has moments of MCU like banter and comedic quips that grows a little tiring and cliche through the runtime. Sure the movie has great world building, some incredible shots and set design that clearly can't be ignored, and a compelling story.

The things that I have to critique come into the unoriginality in some of it. The music sounds like it could be put into any movie an fit. With a movie full of nostalgia, cyberpunk aesthetics, and other things it is really a shame that the needle drops are quite often and don't even fit the scenes while the original score is very lacklustre. Elements being borrowed from other movies to be a strange hodgepodge of ideas is not always bad, but being this blatant doesn't really help all that much. And the cast is star studded, which I feel is a big reason that budget exploded so high and never had a chance of making it's money back, especially being a Netflix original. Just decisions like these make it seem like original movies aren't ever going to be successful and lead to the good ideas not receiving expansions or sequels. I by no means think that this movie needs a sequel, but I would welcome one if it continued to explore the world and history.

Overall rating wise, I think I would give it about a 7/10. It's by no means horrible like other reviews I have seen suggested it, but it could use a bit of extra attention to detail. Just a touch more originality, or at the very least not taking from things that are as obvious.