DUBAI: There’s irony that “The Electric State” — a film that champions people making genuine connections and facing reality rather than getting lost in virtual worlds — was created for the world’s largest streaming platform.
There’s irony, too — though less deliberate — that this $320-million(!) content package is the perfect example of a movie made for our short-attention-span, two-screens-at-a-time world: It looks great. It’s got a star-studded cast. It’s helmed by the Russo Brothers. It’s got retro vibes. It’s got a ton of sci-fi tropes. And it’s instantly forgettable.
It's set in an alternative 1990s in which robots — having become self-aware enough to demand rights —have been defeated in a costly and bloody war and are now banished to the Exclusion Zone. Their defeat was down to Neurocaster Technology, developed by tech mogul Ethan Skate (Stanley Tucci), which allowed humans to upload their minds into drone robots and so go to war without the considerable drawback of being flesh and bone.
That same technology means many humans now spend most of their time hooked up to drone helmets living idyllic virtual lives; humans such as the abusive adoptive father of teen orphan Michelle Green (Millie Bobby Brown), whose parents and much-loved younger brother Chris were killed in a car crash a few years earlier. Except…
Turns out Chris (a bona fide genius, we’re told) wasn’t dead, but in a coma. And his exceptional mind was vital to the creation of Neurocaster. But 13 months later, Chris woke up. And that didn’t fit Skate’s plans, so he just kept him prisoner. But Chris was able to sneak his mind into a robot that finds Michelle and lets her know Chris is alive. She sets out to find him in the dangerous Exclusion Zone, reluctantly aided by a smuggler (Chris Pratt) and his robot friend Herman.
It's a decent set-up for a family-friendly sci-fi romp. But good grief “The Electric State” is —except visually (but, y’know, $320 million…) — dull. Brown does her best with the clunky dialogue, and comes through mostly unscathed. Pratt’s performance is like an AI-rendered Chris Pratt performance (“Do the wisecracking-tough-guy thing. Do the tough-guy-with-a-heart-thing. Do the wisecracking-tough-guy thing again…”). Tucci goes pantomime villain. The robots are kind of cute. But there’s no substance underneath this multi-million-dollar gloss. Then again, if your target audience is People Who Will Be Watching Something Else Too, who needs substance?
