From Ryan Cordaro

It always feels like Netflix has their big sci-fi project of the year. I know I just wrote that, but I can’t remember this year’s big Netflix original action project for the life of me. Either way, the big Netflix movies usually aren’t ones that blow me away at how bad they are. They’re just on for the sake of passing the time, and that’s never really bothered me. Even with just how many stars they can get sometimes, I could barely remember what happened in the movie by the next day. Based on the premise of Netflix’s next big sci-fi spectacle, I hope that this isn’t the case this time.

Based on Simon Stålenhag’s graphic novel of the same name, The Electric State takes place in an alternate 1994, where robots have been banished from the human world after they gained sentience. Michelle, an orphaned teenager, must cross America to find her missing brother, with a former soldier and a mysterious robot who claims to know her brother. It’s been reported that the story is going to diverge from the original graphic novel, which was criticized by fans of the comic. I’m also on a bit of thin ice with the Russo Brothers. Even someone who’s excited for them to come back to Marvel for the next two Avengers movies, it’s not like I adored their last few projects, Cherry and The Gray Man. Even seeing that their Marvel collaborators Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, who wrote all three Captain America movies and both Infinity War and Endgame, just isn’t giving me the oomph that this project should have. Who knows, I could be completely wrong, but I’m at least giving this a shot.

The Electric State stars Millie Bobby Brown (Stranger Things, Damsel), Chris Pratt (Guardians of the Galaxy, The Super Mario Bros. Movie), Ke Huy Quan (Everything Everywhere All At Once, the upcoming Love Hurts), Woody Norman (The Last Voyage of the Demeter, C’mon C’mon), Giancarlo Esposito (Breaking Bad, MaXXXine), and Stanley Tucci (Conclave, The Lovely Bones). The massive voice cast that make up the robots includes Woody Harrelson (True Detective, the upcoming Now You See Me 3), Anthony Mackie (Twisted Metal, the upcoming Captain America: Brave New World), Jason Alexander (Seinfeld, Star Trek: Prodigy), Brian Cox (Succession, The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim), Jenny Slate (It Ends With Us, Marcel the Shell With Shoes On), Hank Azaria (The Simpsons, Hello Tomorrow!), Colman Domingo (Fear the Walking Dead, the upcoming Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man), Rob Gronkowski, and Alan Tudyk (Rogue One, the upcoming Superman).

There’s no word on a theatrical release yet, but The Electric State will stream on Netflix starting on March 14th, 2025.

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