UPDATE: RT score now at 10%
Having seen Joe & Anthony Russo’s “The Electric State,” I can confirm what critics are saying; this is probably the worst “movie” you will see all year, whether on Netflix or in theatres. It’s an automatic Razzie contender. That’s how bad this unwatchable slog is.
The Russos must be thanking their lucky stars that Kevin Feige came calling back for them to direct the next two ‘Avengers’ movies because, otherwise, after this latest debacle, there was no way anyone else would be giving them the green light on another high budget movie.
Think about it, this is a $320M sci-fi movie, from the writers-directors behind the second highest grossing film of all time (“Avengers: Endgame”), releasing on Netflix in seven days’ time, and there’s barely been any buzz.
Right now, “Electric State,” which had been plagued by reshoots and a ballooning budget, is at 0% on Rotten Tomatoes . How can you give such a visually slick, utterly messy, directionless and dull movie good marks?
What is “The Electric State” actually about? To tell you the truth, it’s hard to figure out as there are so many bumbling subplots in this movie that it’s damn-near impossible to really come up with a concisive conclusion on the plot. I’ll try to give it a shot.
I guess you can call it a “coming-of-age tale” that plays like a hybrid of sci-fi, western, comedy and adventure. Millie Bobbie Brown is an orphaned teenager who decides to voyage to the American West with a robot friend, and a drifter, in search of her younger brother, but the journey keeps being disrupted by asinine characters.
The cast for “The Electric State” includes an assortment of supporting actors played by Chris Pratt, Ke Huy Quan, Giancarlo Espostito, Anthony Mackie, Stanley Tucci, Jason Alexander, Brian Cox, and Jenny Slate. It should be noted that the film is actually based on Simon Stålenhag‘s 2018 illustrated novel of the same name.
Principal photography on the film began back in October 2022. A month later, production had to be temporarily paused after a crew member working on the set died in an off-set car crash. Filming “officially” wrapped in February 2023. However, reshoots did occur in March and April 2024.
Earlier in the year, it had been reported by Puck’s Matt Belloni that ‘Electric State’ was one of the reasons why Netflix recently conducted a reassessment of its film division, which, among other changes, had Dan Lin replacing Scott Stuber as head of film.