The Electric State Review

 

The Electric State is a sci-fi adventure comedy-drama that's loosely based on Simon Stalenhag's 2018 illstrurated novel with the same name. Production was done by AGBO and Skybound Entertainment with Netflix handling distribution. Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely wrote while The Russo Brothers directed.

The story is, it's been years since a war broke out between man and machines. One of the many effected by that war was Michelle Greene, who believes she lost her parents and her brother. But one night a robot finds her and gives her clues that her brother might be alive. With this possibility she sets off into a dystopian landscape to find him.

Initial Reaction

Originally I had no intention of watching or even reviewing this. But then I read that the Russo brothers were directing, so that got me interested. Then I saw the "teaser" (seriously when did two minutes of footage become the new standard for a teaser trailer?) and finally decided to give it a chance.

Cons

I've got nothing.

Middle Ground

There are a lot of gray areas, one being the humor. Sometimes it works. There's plenty of times when I laughed, especially with a robot named Harmen. But we also have some moments that didn't work and folks rightfully criticizing it as "MCU humor". I get the Russo's have done that before, but they need to do less of that for theit next projects, even if it is part of the MCU. Then there's the pacing. It wasn't too bad but there were moments that could've used just a slight trim. Nothing too drastic just enough where we won't loose too much of the story. Speaking of the story let's move onto to that. Now am I aware that it differs from the source material, and what I'm about to say will undoubtedly ruffle some feathers but, even if you ignore that the story we have is just fine. No it's nothing incredibly mind blowing, however it still does offer quite a bit of entertainment.

Pros

Now for some positives. Let's start with the special effects. The effects team did a tremendous job, all of the robots were flawless and I was amazed with what was accomplished. Then we have Alan Silvestri's score. Even though I don't hear his name thrown out a lot with composers such Hans Zimmer, or probably more accurately not searching far and wide enough to find his name, from what I heard from him hear, is really good. I especially love his more emotional bits of music. There's one moment during the final battle where there's a heartfelt goodbye and Silvestri's music fit so well and was very beautiful despite the matter at hand. My next bit of praise goes to the action. Even if you didn't like the story, there's no doubt the Russo's don't slack off with the action scenes. They're fun and exciting. Speaking of the Russo's I gotta write about there directing. I don't know if it's just natural evolution, budget, or both, whatever it is it's amazing. The Russo's directing this time is great. Here's some nicely done daytime shots.

Then we've got this nicely done darker tone shots.

But I think some of there best stuff was at nighttime, I really like what they did with the nighttime scenes.

Whatever sort of techniques the Russo's used for this movie I hope and pray they use them again for Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars. Because all of these shots looked great.

If you didn't like this movie that's fine, you clearly read how I myself had some issues. But at the same time I can't say I was bored.

My final rating is, Okay.

So that's a wrap. Due come back on Monday, Mar 17th, for my review of the newest animated movie, The Day The Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day.