An orphaned teen hits the road with a mysterious robot to find her long-lost brother, teaming up with a smuggler and his wisecracking sidekick. (from IMDb)

The Electric State is a Netflix exclusive film directed by the famed Russo brothers - Anthony and Joe, best known for their work with Marvel and the last two Avengers movies. The movie is based on a 2018 graphic novel by Simon Stålenhag, and boasts the star power of Millie Bobby Brown and Chris Pratt. Set in a post-war, late-90's alternate reality where humans and robots co-exist, The Electric State is a quirky would-be blockbuster that has all the ingredients for a smash success, but instead somehow falls painfully short.

I'll be honest; I found the Russos' Marvel treatments to be pretty impressive - especially their Avengers movies, Infinity War and Endgame. The effort it takes to pull off something so massive isn't wasted on me. The brothers' post-Marvel work has been curious. They followed-up their Avengers epics with the 2021 R-rated crime drama, Cherry, for Apple TV+ and then 2022's decent action flick The Gray Man for Netflix. 2025's The Electric State is actually quite the undertaking. Its visual aesthetic and design is unique and rich. If anything can be said for this movie, it's that the visuals are stunning. Aside from star power, it's obvious there was a serious budget for this movie.

The story revolves around a teenage girl named Michelle (Millie Bobby Brown) who lost her brother, Christopher, and parents a few years prior. When a robot shows up claiming to contain the consciousness of her deceased brother, Michelle embarks on a road trip with the robot to find a doctor who may know more about the whereabouts of her brother. Along the way, she meets a smuggler named Keats (Chris Pratt) who has a robot partner named Herman (voiced by Anthony Mackie), and the two very much have a Han Solo and Chewbacca type dynamic. Filling the shoes of the movie's central villain is a scientist named Ethan Skate (Stanley Tucci), who just may be responsible for Christopher's whereabouts. It's interesting because, throughout the film, the set pieces are visually interesting, and the cast is a strong assembly, but for some reason the sum of the parts doesn't quite add up. Even having their Avengers composer Alan Silvestri turning in a decent score isn't enough to pull it all together. In the end, The Electric State is oddly forgettable.

You can't say The Electric State doesn't try, though. Millie turns in a decent performance as Michelle, and she turns up the emotion when the movie needs it most (something she does best on Stranger Things). I love Chris Pratt, but he kind of just plays his usual sort of scrappy hero character here as Keats; he's basically Star-Lord from Guardians of the Galaxy. Mackie is good but nearly unrecognizable with his voice tweaked higher than usual, and Tucci is fine as our villain, but the entire character just feels a bit boring and cliche.

It's funny, because knowing the movie is missing something, but not exactly knowing just what that something is, makes it difficult to point out where it could have improved on things. Maybe Millie isn't a leading woman? Maybe Pratt's usual schtick isn't enough to elevate his surroundings? Maybe the Russo's just couldn't find their groove? Maybe Silvestri was missing that one big Back to the Future-esque theme to make everything grander? It's really tough to say. I remember thinking while watching it, "This really isn't so bad? What's the fuss about?" But in the end, maybe it's just too... average?

I'd be remiss if I didn't address the film's big finale, though. I'm venturing into spoiler territory here, but I don't think it's too surprising to reveal. The climactic sequence of the movie features a big battle outside a headquarters of sorts with large robots versus drones piloted by humans. It's shot, staged, and orchestrated very much like the finale of Avengers: Endgame, and it cheapens this film (if not both films) by being much too similar in look and feel. Silvestri's score, while decent and effective, does channel some serious Avengers vibes from time to time, which also makes the movie feel a little counterfeit. I realize this may be unnecessarily harsh, but it's almost like the Russo's just kind of gave up in trying to figure out the finale and just decided to "swede" one of their own movies for this one.

In some ways, the movie feels skewed toward a younger audience, but the Russo's don't shy away from there being a fair amount of profanity scattered throughout. There isn't much by way of graphic violence, but a character is shown lying dead with a piece of metal impaled through their abdomen with some blood at one point; it's easily the movie's hardest visual moment. Otherwise, there's some emotional aspects involving Michelle having lost her whole family, and now bouncing around foster homes. There's a fair amount of action violence, but it's mostly humans vs. robots, and it's usually not graphic. There isn't much by way of spiritual content, but the villain makes a weird reference to him and some of his allies/tools adding up to being "the holy trinity."

Thematically, while the movie is set in the 90s, and there are plenty of nods to the technology of the time period, having humans coexisting with robots feels much more 2025 than 1997. It never quite feels like an authentic 90's world. Also, the majority of humans live with the help of drone helmets and VR -- think the movie Surrogates (or Avatar) with, instead of young perfect human surrogate robotic bodies, they're using Star Wars-like drones that have a screen on their face projecting yours from wherever you are. Whether intentional or not, it says something about our present dependence on phones and artificial intelligence, as well as Virtual Reality (although to a lesser degree).

The Electric State really isn't a bad movie, but the main problem is I'm not sure it's exactly a good movie either. I'd say I found it enjoyable enough, but it doesn't leave much of a lasting impression. Since it's out now to watch as much as you'd like to on Netflix, maybe repeat viewings will fair better, but after one watch, The Electric State doesn't feel like a big streaming blockbuster that should have had a theatrical release. Instead, by Netflix giving it an exclusively streaming release, it feels more so like a blockbuster that tested so poorly, it went straight to streaming.