The Electric State is a huge production that feels surprisingly empty. Anthony and Joe Russo create impressive images, but the effort does not translate into a compelling story or an emotional connection.
In an alternative version of the nineties, Michelle travels through a dystopian world with robot Cosmo to find her missing brother. Millie Bobby Brown plays her, while Chris Pratt's smuggler Keats joins the journey among enormous machine wrecks and ruined cities.
That premise promises an atmospheric adventure. Instead, the film struggles to combine a melancholy road movie with blockbuster explosions. The story drags and the action repeats until its impact fades.
Brown's Michelle receives too little development to make the search moving. Pratt is competent but has little depth to work with. Cosmo looks striking without creating the emotional bond the film needs.
The world is detailed, with imposing ruins and an oppressive atmosphere. Yet its history and the machines' place within it remain insufficiently convincing for me. The images invite questions that the storytelling does not answer satisfyingly.
The result is a spectacle with promising ideas but little soul. Visual scale alone cannot make me care about a journey, and the impressive surroundings only make the lack of character more apparent. For me, The Electric State is overloaded entertainment that is easier to look at than to become involved in.