Explore the new movie, The Electric State 2025

The Electric State: The Electric State is set in a parallel reality where robotics become a commonplace aspect of daily life. Michelle (Millie Bobby Brown, of Stranger Things) and her parents are shown in the film's opening scene in 1990. Michelle's brother Christopher (Woody Norman, of C'mon C'mon) is a brilliant child who is going to start college at a very young age, and she is extremely proud of him. However, four years later, after humanity has fought a war against the robots, Michelle resides with their foster father Ted (Jason Alexander), whose parents and Christopher passed away a few years prior.

The Electric State

However, when a robot that resembles a TV show mascot arrives at her home and informs her via hand gestures and pre-recorded catchphrases that Christopher is controlling it remotely, things take a positive turn. To find out where his real brother might be, our brave heroine chooses to travel to the EX, a region amid the desert where the majority of "bots" are put to die. Together with smuggler Keats (Chris Pratt, from Guardians of the Galaxy) and his robot friend Herman (voiced by an unrecognizable Anthony Mackie), who portrays Han Solo and Chewbacca in the film, she sets out to locate the location.

The plot of  The Electric State Flixtor is generic, and that's for good reason. The film never succeeds in creating a distinct style, feeling more like "content" than a real motion picture, combining the visuals of any recent Marvel film and Spielberg's Ready Player One with a slightly altered version of the "Hero's Journey" and road movie narrative beats. The Electric State's plot never gets too complicated or fascinating for even the most distracted spectator, and like many other Flixtor films, it feels like the kind of thing you could watch while doing the dishes or laundry. Naturally, I made an effort to respect the movie and gave it my whole attention.

This is great because Simon Stålenhag's novel could have served as a major source of inspiration for many narrative and visual projects. The movie, which focuses on the usage of corporate mascots and goofy-looking robots as supporting and even plot-important characters, oddly omits a lot of the book's original imagery. For instance, having Mr. Peanut lead the "bot rebellion" may have seemed amusing on paper, but as part of the finished product, it feels like a cynical choice, as if The Electric State were substituting the characters we see at the grocery store for superheroes and recognizable figures from long-gone, well-known franchises.