“The Electric State” Reviews Are In

Filmmakers Joe and Anthony Russo have had strong success directing on television (“Community,” “Happy Endings”), directing four films now for Marvel Studios including arguably the MCU’s finest hour (“Captain America: The Winter Soldier”), and producing films like “Extraction” and Oscar winner “Everything Everywhere All At Once”.

Directing movies outside of Marvel though… things have not gone well reviews wise. Critics have straight-up panned all four of their non-MCU directed films to date with Rotten Tomatoes scores of 55% (5.9/10) for “Welcome to Collinwood,” 20% (4.4/10) for “You, Me and Dupree,” 37% (5.2/10) for “Cherry” and 45% (5.6/10) for “The Gray Man”.

Now comes “The Electric State,” the sci-fi action-adventure epic set in an alternate, retro-futuristic version of the 1990s. The film sports a $320 million budget, one so high it allegedly led to Netflix reassessing its film division with a mandate of being more frugal, and also follows in the wake of the brothers’ costly $300 million “Citadel” TV series which came and went with little fanfare.

Will this prove a hit for them? Amongst critics it’s looking unlikely. With 18 reviews in on Rotten Tomatoes, the film has debuted with just a 22% positive score and a very dire 2.9/10 average rating.

Nine reviews are in on Metacritic where it’s landed on a 30/100 score – the worst score of all 82 movies released this year so far – lower than “Flight Risk” (38), “Star Trek: Section 31” (37) and “Love Hurts” (34). It’s a score on par with last year’s “The Crow” reboot along and the fourth “Expendables” movie.

The samples are relatively small though so expect those numbers to change a bit as more reviews come in. Here’s a sampling of reviews:

“Underneath its samey story and MCU-quip-a-thon dialogue is something that’s increasingly rare to find in movies with a similar standing: originality.” – Dais Johnston, Inverse

“Truth be told, there isn’t a single laugh — or even a knowing smile — to be found in this relentlessly stale ordeal, which does for sci-fi adventure comedies what “The Gray Man” did for action thrillers: absolutely nothing.” – David Ehrlich, Indiewire

“The film is busy to a degree that grows more and more assaultive. But it’s neither funny nor exciting. Like so many streaming originals, The Electric State seems less a real movie than an imitation of one.” – David Rooney, THR

“Directors Joe and Anthony Russo surprisingly undervalue their source material’s blueprint, turning author Simon Stålenhag’s salient, bleak thriller into a whimsical, sanitized mess of mimeographed ideas from a handful of far better cinematic inspirations.” – Courtney Howard, Variety

“There’s no soul, no originality, just a great big multicolour wedge of digital content.” – Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

“The Electric State contains the most baffling call-to-arms in recent cinema. This is a story, in short, about how all those damn kids should put their phones down and go hug the nearest corporate mascot.” – Clarisse Loughrey, Independent

“‘The Electric State’ is just another display of how the Russo Brothers have regressed as a directing team into something that, at this point, only makes films not even worth subjecting yourself to.” – Giovanni Lago, Next Best Picture

“[It’s] a movie difficult to connect with – who is it for? Millennials who can sense the cynicism in the film’s deployment of nostalgia? Fans of the novel who have already railed against the film in reaction to the trailer? … It’s a bit baffling.” – Tori Brazier, Metro

“Sometimes a movie hits you so hard, you can’t shake it. [This] is such a movie. It’s so dunderheaded and cacophonous that I’m still angry about its existence. A convoluted collision of genres, ideas, and bottom-of-the-barrel nostalgia that cannot be elevated by its stars.”- Kristy Puchko, Mashable

Millie Bobbie Brown, Chris Pratt, Ke Huy Quan, Giancarlo Espostito, Anthony Mackie, Stanley Tucci, Jason Alexander, Brian Cox, and Jenny Slate star in the coming-of-age sci-fi western tale set in a retro-futuristic past.

Brown plays an orphaned teenager who traverses the American West with her robot friend and an eccentric drifter in search of her younger brother. It is based on the acclaimed graphic novel by Simon Stalenhag.

The film wil have its debut on Friday March 14th on Netflix.

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