thelesterlee
Welcome to Deadseriousness Movie reviews. Today, let’s talk about Netflix’s expensive waste of time, The Electric State.
Last year in an interview with The Sun, Millie Bobby Brown admitted she didn’t like watching movies.
“I don’t watch movies. People come up to me and say, ‘You should definitely watch this movie, it would change your life.’ And I’m like, ‘How long do I have to sit there for?’ Because my brain and I don’t even like sitting for my own movies.”
“My fiancé is the biggest movie buff. He just sits and watches movies all day. And I cannot do that. That is the one thing I can’t sit down and do.
But I really love Lara Croft in Tomb Raider, I love Mad Max. So I feel like I’m always channelling that inner bad-ass.”
I’m sure Millie isn’t the only actor in the world who isn’t obsessed with their craft.
It’s obvious she wants to be a movie star and work on projects she deems cool or may position her as a bigger star—but she’s not here to create art.
And that attitude is all over Netflix’s The Electric State—a movie directed by the Russo Brothers, about an alternate reality in which humans and robots had a massive war in the ’90s.
But these robots aren’t like, war machines or anything like that.
These robots are mostly mascots—those animatronics you’d see at Chuck E. Cheese and appliances that wanted to be recognized as living organisms who deserve freedom from human control and enslavement
The robot army is led by Mr. Peanut. So. Yea. That’s what type of movie this is. It’s like Ready Player One without any of the emotional heartbeat or recognizable IP.
Humans were able to win the war thanks to Stanley Tucci’s company, Sentre, creating “Neurocaster Technology”—allowing humans to upload their brains into drone robots.
In the aftermath of the war, the Sentre was able to sell this technology to the masses—as millions of people spend all day in their little virtual realities, away from the pains of life. It’s like the show Severance minus the good writing and character studies and mysteries and overall effort to be smart or interesting.
Millie Bobby Brown plays Michelle Greene—a name I had to look up after I watched because I don’t remember anyone actually saying her name.
She’s a teenager—so you know Drake was watching—who lost her family in a car accident, landing her in foster care with George Constanza—who hates her for unexplained reasons.
Foster parents = bad, of course.
She hates her life, until suddenly, she is visited by a robot that looks like the cartoon she and her dead brother used to watch together.
The robot can only communicate through vague catchphrases—an original concept we certainly didn’t see in Transformers. Shout out Bumblebee.
The robot has her brother’s mind inside as he urges Michelle to go out and find his actual body.
That’s when we meet Chris Pratt doing his best Han Solo impression and “The Butcher” aka Giancarlo Esposito’s drone who hunts down rogue robots.
We meet a bunch of robots—they get blown up.
Michelle reunites with her brother—whose mind is so powerful that it is literally keeping the entire Sentre company running—thus shutting down the bad guys and saving the day.
Yay.
The whole movie is filler, saved by the buoyancy of 90s nostalgia.
Absolute garbage. 5 stars out of 5. Wouldn’t change a thing.
Here are 3 things I loved about The Electric State:
1. Millie Bobby Brown cannot act
Millie Bobby Brown didn’t have to tell anyone she doesn’t watch movies.
We know.
Millie’s voice sounds like a snotty kid who refuses to blow their nose—nasally, lazily slurring words in scenes that I could not believe the Russo Brothers didn’t shoot more takes.
Genuinely could not understand some of her lines.
She articulates like the kid in class who is terrified about being asked to read aloud in front of everyone.
Everyone wants an EGOT these days.
BOOOO.
I love that Millie Bobby Brown just wants to be a movie star—even if the script is complete nonsense.
Give her a gigantic bag of cash and she’ll be in your silly Godzilla movie or The Electric State.
Margaret Qualley and Florence Pugh and Mikey Madison can compete for Oscars.
Millie Bobby Brown is there to clock in, do the least, clock out—then buy expensive shit or go on expensive vacations.
The Electric State was going to be generic Netflix content slop—no matter who the lead actress was.
I’m glad it was Millie—a woman who will never even watch it herself.
2. Giancarlo Esposito’s accent
Most of Giancarlo Esposito’s scenes were shot from his home.
Because his ‘drone’ does most of the work, Giancarlo just had to record himself sitting at his desk with that stupid helmet on and send the Russo Brothers some audio for the drone.
A role Gus Fring could have understandably phoned in and instead—my man introduced a strange southern accent out of nowhere.
He plays a war vet, turned mercenary cop, motivated by his one guiding principle that robots are not humans—only to put his gun down and stop fighting once he meets Stanley Tucci’s evil tech-overlord Elon Musk-esque character—who he describes as the only person he’s met who’s less human than robots.
Everyone in this movie was here to get a check but Giancarlo added a little spice that no one expected or asked for.
All shitty movies need at least one actor doing their own thing that doesn’t totally make sense or match the vibes of anyone else.
3. Absolutely no stakes
The Electric State cost around $300 million to make and it’s evident Netflix was attempting to create a big sci-fi franchise to build sequels and side shows and games and action figures and discourse.
So I wasn’t surprised when all the main characters were alive and well when the credits rolled.
My guy Ke Huy Quan—from The Goonies and Everything Everywhere All At Once—plays Dr. Clark Amherst—the engineer who helped Millie’s brother free himself from the control of The Sentre.
Giancarlo Esposito kills him.
But not really because his entire consciousness, including his voice, is just transferred into a robot.
Chris Pratt’s robot sidekick heroically sacrifices himself—only to reveal a smaller robot inside.
He’s totally fine because of some Russian nesting doll technology.
Millie’s brother dies—saving the world from the evil tech company.
And then right at the end, the robot his consciousness occupied, reactivated, alluding to the idea that he’s still alive.
Every character must be saved and preserved for potential sequels. No one dies, in this literal war.
Nothing matters. Love it. 5 stars.
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