3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): The Electric State

2025, The Russo Brothers (Cherry) -- Netflix

I love the artwork of  Simon Stålenhag. A lot of his work gets collected together in art books which pull things together thematically.  If all of his work can be summarized into a single description, it is a merging of mundane landscape, urban, suburban, rural countryside, with distinctly scifi elements. There is often a retro-futuristic feel.

That didn't really describe anything.

OK. Robots, kids, landscapes, big machinery, neon, cyberpunk, ruins, war machines, scifi technology, spaceships, pop culture.

The book for "The Electric State" was a script in the making, scenes of a 1990s run-away and her little yellow, globe-headed robot, walking across an America where something has happened. There is a mixture of giant-robots and war machines, abandoned spaceships (or war ships), all with a 1950s to 80s pop iconography style, as well as people connected to some sort of network via a headset -- they are definitely "jacked in" to something that let's them forget their world. Connecting the imagery are scenes of looming structures on he horizon, something society must depend on, something that has changed it.

While its not a contiguous story, it was just begging to be made into a movie or TV show. And I was just waiting for that to happen.

If anything we got all the imagery right, and the added fun of adding some character to the robots and technology, but what ruined it all for me was the typical Netflix way of homogenising it all into something digestible for the average viewer. And this is coming from me, the guy admittedly more at home with digestive cookies of late.

We start with the background, a retconned history of the world, something seen before, where robots became part of society from early in our technological era. And without even mentioning the separation of AI and automaton robots, we jump right up to the robots demanding rights, which leads to a war between man and machine. Only with the help of Ethan Skate (Musk analog) and his Neurocaster headsets, that allowed people to remote control robots, was the war against machines won. And the "survivors" on the losing side banished to the wilds of the American mid-west, and surrounded by a wall. Neurocasters became the new social media -- an addiction that everyone participated in, separating those that lived inside whatever is inside (utopia?), from those outside in the filthy, messy, breaking down real world. With decades of people having robots do all the messy work for them, I guess we didn't adjust well to going back to doing it ourselves. 

Enter Michelle (Millie Bobby Brown, Damsel), a teenager who lost her family and is doing the typical orphaned teen thing of terrible foster parents, anger, spite and rebellion. Until cartoon robot Cosmo shows up outside and convinces her that he is her long lost brother (Woody Norman, Cobweb), alive and somehow (barely) controlling this robot. And he needs her help. She has to go into the robot Exclusion Zone and find him.

Enter ex-soldier, smuggler Keats (Chris Pratt, The Tomorrow War), who sneaks into the Exclusion Zone to find old, abandoned pop culture items, to be re-sold outside. And his sidekick robot Herman (Anthony Mackie, Elevation). Oh, outside the zone, robots are illegal, so that means a legacy of the war, one Colonel Bradbury (Giancarlo Esposito, Far Cry 6), is sent to hunt down Michelle's rogue robot. The two pairs team up to find her brother.

Much of the movie takes place inside the Zone, where all the weird and wonderful robots live. Each one is a sentient, living person, without any doubt. Even the insane ones that scavenge parts of other robots. They are led by Mr Peanut (Woody Harrelson, The Man from Toronto), who negotiated the treaty with Colonel Bradbury, which ended the war. He only wants to keep his people safe, and that is not helped by the introduction of these human interlopers, who bring some else's agenda into their safe haven.

That someone is Ethan Skate (Stanley Tucci, Julie & Julia) who wants Cosmo / Michelle's brother. Skate's Neurocaster technology has been running down over the years and its continued existence depends on her brother. He will stop at nothing to recover them. He doesn't care who dies. He's more than a little nuts.

But by the time the movie got to the climactic third act, I just didn't care. Yah yeah, robot rebellion, come-uppance, sacrifice, robot smashy-smashy. Yawn. I know I have been clipping off the tail-ends in my recaps of late, losing steam or whatnot, but this is how my own emotional investment in the movie tapered off. Things happened, I no longer cared.

Primarily, it was the human story that failed me. You know me, I am more than happy with well-used tropes, and I am fine with a cliche story as long as it grips me. This didn't. I just didn't enjoy any of the human performances, and found the light-heartedness a bit grating. I kept on comparing it in my mind to Clooney's Tomorrowland, which I still love. But at least in that movie I really liked Clooney's crotchety coot character, and well... I didn't really like any of the humans here. Maybe I will soften to it with rewatches, but that wasn't the point. I was waiting for this movie, and while I am used to disappointment, I am also somewhat tired of tempered acceptance. I need my next "I really liked that!" and I had really hoped this would be it. Maybe I should just buy the coffee table / art book and be more than satisfied with the source.

I am so "meh" about the movie, I didn't even mention that they wasted Ke Huy Quan as Dr. Amherst, despite him being more fun as his own robot "clone" in the form of a jimmied-together 90s PC.