The Electric State

I'm a huge fan of the Russo Brothers, a lifelong fan of Sci-Fi and I enjoy Chris Pratt and big budget action flicks.

So why did I have such a difficult time plugging into THE ELECTRIC STATE?

The first hour was like getting through a geometry test. Boring and pointless, the story squanders every bit of goodwill. $320 million worth of CGI spews over you like some half-assed mash up of "A.I." and "Ready Player One". The only math I walked away knowing is that Anthony Russo+Joe Russo<Steven Spielberg.

The world is an alternate 1997 that's in the same dirty, broken down state as it was in "Ready", with the masses distracting themselves via immersive bulky VR headsets that take them to another world. These headpieces are bulky, ugly, all straight edges and dirty metal. Hell, the VR sets in Douglas Trumbull's "Brainstorm" all the way back in 1983 were 100 times cooler than these clunky beasts.

Robots are everywhere, from tiny household bots to huge roving metal creatures. Regardless of size, they've all been banished to a walled off area in the southwest after a huge corporation was able to stave off their attempted metal rebellion.

We meet Michelle (Millie Bobbie Brown from "Stranger Things") a rebellious orphan who has moved from foster home to foster home. She's on a quest with her robot sidekick Cosmo (Alan Tudyk) to find her brother Christopher (Woody Norman) who's so smart that our big baddie Ethan Skate wants to use him to power his government-approved global network that runs the world.

Skate is played by Stanley Tucci in a performance that is the Hamburger Helper alternative to his wagyu role as Cardinal Belini in "Conclave" last year. To say his talents are wasted is like saying a couple of dollars were overspent on this movie's budget.

Chris Pratt plays a street version of Star Lord named Keats, who is so vanilla as a smuggler that Pratt almost disappears in the role. Even his character transformation late in the film feels awkward. Pratt is a hugely enjoyable actor, he's just not given an actual character to play.

There is a parade of stars voicing the wild array of robots in the film.

Woody Harrelson (Last Breath, True Detective) is Mr. Peanut. yes, that Mr. Peanut, a joke ripe with opportunities that are as lost as his hat for most of the running time.

Ke Huy Quan (Everything Everywhere All at Once, The Goonies) is PC, a square medical robot with a very early green dot matrix face.

Billy Gardell (Mike & Molly) is a garbage robot, perhaps channeling the screenplay.

Giancarlo Esposito (Breaking Bad) is a military man and a robot called The Marshall.

Talented actors all, but nearly invisible in the unfocused, dull happenings that swirl all around them in a wall of noise and dust.

There were two scenes that stood out and sparked my interest for less than a minute.

Both were in the action climax that is visually spectacular, but could be interchanged for any Marvel battle against an invading bad guy or species the last twenty years and be judged identical.

The big emotional impact that the Russos are going for in the final scenes lands with a thud. This is, for me, their worst film. Let's hope they got this dreck out of their system before they head off to film the next two Avengers installments in 2026 and 2027.

During Michelle and Christopher's big "trying to be heart wrenching" final scene, I sat watching it, devoid of any emotional connection. My mind wandered back to the final scenes in Spielberg's "A.I.", with David, the young robotic boy meeting The Blue Fairy. John Williams music, Spielberg's deft hand, great effects, gut punches of emotional payoff...now THAT is a great movie about robots & family.

This big, lumbering, gargantuan overstuffed mess just sits there, throwing everything at the wall as Alan Silvestri's score tries to manipulate you into feeling something, anything.

Unless you count boredom and astonishment at how so much talent and so much money turns into this turd, I felt nothing.

There isn't one tangible, physical robot in this movie, everything is CGI.

I haven't seen an action epic this soulless since "Howard the Duck".

Devoid of entertainment, THE ELECTRIC STATE sputters its way to an F.