Shadows on the Wall | The Electric State

The Electric State

dir Joe Russo, Anthony Russo
scr Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely
prd Anthony Russo, Joe Russo, Mike Larocca, Angela Russo-Otstot, Chris Castaldi
with Millie Bobby Brown, Chris Pratt, Stanley Tucci, Giancarlo Esposito, Ke Huy Quan, Woody Norman, Colman Domingo, Holly Hunter
voices Woody Harrelson, Anthony Mackie, Brian Cox, Alan Tudyk
release US/UK 14.Mar.25
25/US Netflix 2h08

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Based on a graphic novel, this fantasy sci-fi adventure is set in an alternate past when people opt for virtual reality rather than real life, so it feels very pointed. Joe and Anthony Russo direct this in their usual big-movie style, with enormous set-pieces and seamless special effects. The aesthetic is clanky metallic retro-tech, so it's often visually dazzling, even if the narrative feels a bit vacuous.

In 1990, robots rebelled against their enslavement, and the resulting war was won using drone-controlling neurocasters invented by billionaire Ethan Skate (Tucci). Now in 1994, teen Michelle (Brown) refuses to use one. And she's shocked when a robotic Cosmo mascot appears claiming to be her supposedly dead brother Chris (Norman), asking her to rescue him from the exclusion zone. She teams up with the contraband-running Keats (Pratt) and his robot sidekick Herman (Mackie). Chased by the fearsome bot-hunter Bradbury (Esposito), they will need to track down Dr Clark (Quan) in order to find Chris.

Amusingly, Cosmo (voiced by Tudyk) only speaks in the corny phrases a toy might recite, so Michelle has to decode Chris' meaning. And the film's world-building is impressive, including how robots in the exclusion zone cannibalise each other for parts, creating a vivid junk-graveyard desert landscape. There's also a derelict shopping mall where a Mr Peanut bot (Harrelson) is trying to build a community. Meanwhile, humans in the outside world live almost entirely virtually, wasting away in their neurocaster helmets.

Through all of this, the actors manage to hold the interest by creating likeable characters. At the centre, Brown is particularly strong, building superb chemistry with the excellent Norman and Quan. Pratt tries but can't make Keats much more than a wisecracking mercenary, while Esposito is able to bring more texture as the tenacious Bradbury. And Tucci is rather terrifying against type as the heartless scientist with a serious god complex.

There's definitely a sense that the large-scale filmmaking swamps anything in this story that might resonate, most notably whatever it is that's happened to Chris. The Russos continually opt for visual, verbal or musical jokes that undermine anything that might be meaningful or honest. So the film is entertaining for what it is, but it feels badly stretched out because there isn't enough depth to keep us involved. This leaves the emotive moments, including the concluding mini-sermon about living in the moment, feeling awkwardly sentimentalised.

themes, language, violence 12.Mar.25

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