Netflix's The Electric State, directed by MCU's Anthony and Joe Russo and written by MCU's Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely (based on Simon Stalenhag's celebrated, illustrated novel), is an alternate-reality, science-fiction exploit. It takes place in a realm that spans the 1980s into the 1990s, where robots and humans have warred upon each other.
From the movie's prologue, we learn that robo-tech reached its dangerous heights in the '80s, with the "bots" disregarding Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics to rebel against their masters. As such, they neared victory, but the humans gained leverage by implanting their consciousnesses into lean, soldier machines, puppeteered from unseen locales. The human triumph, however, did not stem just from this precocious advantage; an ulterior motive was at play, one that would catapult minds in an altogether A.I. way.
It comes down to a young lady, Michelle Greene (Millie Bobby Brown), and her surrogate-brother bot, Kid Cosmo (Alan Tudyk) to unveil the secret. Cosmo, it turns out, holds a loose, symbiotic link to Michelle's younger brother, Christopher (Woody Norman), which was enacted by a scientist, Ethan Skate (Stanley Tucci), head of the once influential company, Sentre. Skate came upon the boy's extraordinary, cerebral capabilities, and has maintained the lad's comatose shell to initiate a global, virtual-reality stream: a symbiotic "paradise" where transmitted, pleasant thoughts rule the roost, but the concept is more indolent and self-serving than not.
On their path to retrieve Christopher, Michelle and Cosmo encounter a pair of roguish scavengers, John D. Keats (Chris Pratt) and his mechanical companion, Herman (voiced by Anthony Mackie and "costumed" by Martin Klebba), who after some reluctance, join the quest. This, in turn, leads the four into a bot haven called Blue Sky Acres Mall, and from there, the plot pivots into further peril and crucial revelations.
The characters who appear throughout this Oz-like journey are quite colorful: Marshall Bradbury (Giancarlo Esposito), the war's eclipsing hero, hired to hunt Michelle and Cosmo; Mr. Peanut (Woody Harrelson), the bots' wartime leader; Penny Pal (Jenny Slate), a post-office bot; Pop Fly (Brian Cox), a baseball bot; Perplexo (Hank Azaria), a magician bot; and Dr. Amherst (Ke Huy Quan), a friendly scientist with tenuous ties to Skate. Others round out the off-center ensemble, including Jason Alexander as Michelle's disagreeable, foster father.
The adventure is sprawling and uses aspects of other science-fiction stories for its various parts, including Surrogates; I, Robot; Short Circuit; *batteries not included; Ready Player One; Brainstorm; Heartbeeps; Strange Days; Terminator; Ghost in the Shell; Alita: Battle Angel; Frankenstein's Army; Mortal Engines; Star Trek Generations; Space Hunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone, and the '80s, Twilight Zone episode, "Dreams for Sale." The alluding hodgepodge is never too obvious and if detected, feels more like a sprinkling of inspiration than all-out plagiarism. (Heck, Star Wars: A New Hope and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow pulled the same stunt with little to no complaint.)
With the latter considered, Electric State can't be considered avant-garde. It simply rests on its war-torn and cheerful-looking backdrops, with sporadic references to pop-cultural items from its remade era. I've heard some complain about this, with one reviewer stating that, though Electric State may not be weighed by predictable "wokeness" (thank goodness, I agree), it's still unworthy of praise, since it never hits the provoking pinnacle it could have achieved. The complaint strikes me as odd, for not every movie will end up a Citizen Kane or Metropolis, no matter the ambition applied. Movies, for the most part, are designed to deliver escapism, and if they do so without a misinformed, prejudicial pitch, better that than not.
From my viewpoint, this one did its job, being happy, sad, scary, serious and silly all within its two-hour-plus running time: a meritorious accomplishment for any genre.
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