Netflix's "The Electric State" is notable for two reasons: this is directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, the men who directed the completely competent "The Grey Man" for the streaming service a few years ago. Oh, and a few of those little movies in something called "The Marvel Universe." I'm sure you've heard of them.
The second reason? Its budget. The internet tells me this cost north of 300 million bucks. That's a lot of money, enough to make this one of the most expensive flicks of all time, putting this in the company of movies that won't be forgotten when next week's "movie of the week" drops.
Notice how neither reason was for being any good, because it's not. I'm not saying it's bad, just, considering all the talent, both on and behind the screen, not to mention all the moolah, the end-product should be something other than, well, a "product." Cinema should be an experience, and this is just an exercise in wannabe franchise building.
The plot, based on Simon Stålenhag's illustrated novel, has us follow Michelle (Millie Bobby Brown), a teenager in the 90's, but not the same 90's we all went through: it's told robots (invented by a certain amusement park creator, no less), had been used for decades, doing all the jobs humans don't want to. Only tensions rose where they wanted rights, to be treated fairly. A war breaks out, but a Mr. Skate (Stanley Tucci) creates "drones," which are like robots controlled by humans like a virtual reality video game. This allows the humans to quickly win, and all robots are banished to live within the walls of the desert. It's a novel (heh) premise, but the moral implications here are never answered- instead, we get explosions, battles, sketchy tech billionaires, the works. Sounds more like the news to me.
It's implied at one point by the bots that the humble toaster should have rights; it's supposed to be some level of satire, but let's pretend it's not. Let's pretend, for a moment, that all electrical and mechanical equipment should be equal to anything sentient. Does that mean the humans would have locked up cars? TVs?
And, let's say for a second, that robots have rights. Alright cool, which rights? Do they get maternity leave? Pretty sure a toaster is asexual. Probably best to not think about this.
Anyway, Michelle lives in a foster home, after her parents and brother Chris (Woody Norman) are thought to have died in a car accident a few years prior. She acts like any teenager does in the movies, hating everyone and everything, especially drones. I don't exactly know why she hates this technology, but maybe I was just on my phone, enjoying the luxury of not having to "silence my cellphone."
But one day a noise outside wakes her, and by-golly it's a robot! Communicating exclusively through voice samples of an old cartoon, she realizes that it's really her brother! He explains (non-verbally) that they need to see a "doctor with glasses" in the robot prison, which leads them to meeting up with Keats (Chris Pratt), a trucker who smuggles items lost in the desert. To go on would be to enter spoiler-territory, but then again, anyone who's ever seen a science fiction movie has seen "The Electric State."
In an attempt at creating a backstory, we sporadically see flashbacks of Michelle and Chris, but there's something "off' about the two actors. The brother and sister have this uncomfortable relationship, like they're too close, flirty close. Or maybe I just have a poorer relationship with my family. I kept waiting for them to kiss, like find out they're adopted or something.
Eh, on second thought my family relationship is better.
The best part are all the cameos: you get a glance at some tertiary character and wonder for the next thirty minutes who it is. "Wait was that Jason Alexander?!" Why yes it is.
My second favorite thing is watching all the unspecial special effects, wondering how in the hell this thing cost so much. Probably all the cameos.
I get it, it's a dystopian adventure, but in a make-believe world where Chris Pratt plays a loser truck driver outside a prison sounds like a wacky cross between John Carpenter's "Big Trouble in Little China" and "Escape from New York," but its prerogative is far less fun or serious. And if you're gonna remind me of stone-cold classics, you'd better bring your A-game. The folks behind "The Electric State" are on barely passing. It's a flick so aggressively mediocre and uninterested in answering its own questions that I ended up watching it in pieces; I almost didn't go back and finish it. That is not a good sign.
But back to how much this whole thing cost, I just can't get over it! You're telling me, in a world the way it is today, that this is the best use of literally hundreds of millions of dollars. Why not invest all that in the future, like donate it to a university where today's young minds could very well create tomorrow?
Unless this is supposed to be some cautionary tale against using bots, but then again, the only thing this cautions against is stale filmmaking.
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