Netflix seems to have made another misfire with directors Anthony and Joe Russo’s latest sci-fi blockbuster, The Electric State. Loosely based on the novel by Simon Stålenhag, 2025’s The Electric State depicts Stranger Things‘s Millie Bobby Brown as a teenage girl who teams up with a smuggler, played by Chris Pratt, and a robot to find her missing brother in an alternate 1990s America. While it is arguably Netflix’s most expensive movie to date, The Electric State seems to have fallen before it even arrives on streaming, having been swamped by a wave of negative reviews.

So far, the movie has a shocking 23% rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes, continuing the trend of poorly received projects in the Russo Brothers’ post-Avengers: Endgame career. One can only wonder how such acclaimed directors could have dropped the ball with such a big project. Only a handful of film critics have panned The Electric State, so the public has yet to judge the entire movie for themselves. Nevertheless, from underdeveloped characters to creative liberties to too much nostalgia, critics have had several gripes about the Russo Brothers’ The Electric State.

5

The Electric State Steers Too Far From The Source Material

The Changes To The Electric State’s Story Drew Ire Before The Film’s Premiere

The Electric State‘s first trailer began the movie’s history of backlash, with people criticizing the glaring difference between the film and the source material. Though pretty much every story gets changed when adapted from book to film, the changes made to The Electric State don’t seem to have paid off in the end. Variety‘s Courtney Howard stated in a review that The Russo Brothers’ film “turns [Stålenhag’s] salient, bleak thriller…into a whimsical, sanitized mess of mimeographed ideas from a handful of far better cinematic inspirations.”

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Anthony Russo justified The Electric State‘s original story and its differences from the book, comparing these creative liberties to the development of Marvel films:

“We just looked at the images and the story that [Stålenhag] unfolds in the graphic novel. It is very opaque. It’s kind of hard to understand it. You get it in glimpses. You can tell there’s a much larger world behind what he’s telling you in the graphic novel that you can only guess at.”

Stories like Marvel Comics need huge changes to be taken seriously enough in live-action. However, the changes the Russos made to The Electric State‘s story seem to have ruined what was already a solid and beloved narrative as they tried to turn a dark and bleak tale into a more appealing, family-friendly film. As a result, Howard wrote that the film’s directors and writers “surprisingly undervalue their source material’s blueprint when it comes to character construction and immersive world-building.”

4

The Electric State Relies Too Much On Nostalgia

The Electric State Is Too Focused On The Past To Appeal To The Present

The Electric State‘s darker, more hi-tech version of 1990s America could’ve made the movie a distinctive and immersive sci-fi blockbuster. However, it seems that the film leaned too heavily on this aesthetic at the expense of the rich story and world presented in Stålenhag’s book. Looper‘s Alistair Ryder wrote that The Electric State “cares more about triggering nostalgic flashbacks in audiences than about accurately building out a sci-fi world worth emotionally investing in.”

Projects like Stranger Things succeeded in balancing nostalgia with their grounded, soulful stories. On the other hand, The Electric State seems to focus more on invoking the former. This can be best exemplified by the robot versions of corporate mascots like Mr. Peanut, whose upfront presence in the film makes it come across as the studio’s cynical attempt to appeal to consumers and make a profit. Ironically, this nostalgic approach seems to undermine The Electric State‘s protest against big corporations and the public’s overreliance on the technology they produce.

3

The Electric State Tells A “Derivative” Tale

The Electric State Reportedly Doesn’t Stand Out From Similar Films

On the surface, The Electric State features the kind of post-apocalyptic sci-fi film audiences have seen many times and in many forms. Specifically, the trailers for The Electric State teased a movie that seemed like a mix of Ready Player One and Terminator. Despite such similar stories, the Russo Brothers could’ve created something truly unique with the story presented in Stålenhag’s book. Unfortunately, as they altered Stålenhag’s story for a feature film for wider audiences, it seems that the directors ended up with a formulaic generic sci-fi flick in critics’ eyes.

The Electric State has reportedly been reduced to what Vanity Fair described as “mostly bland quipping intercut with the same metal-on-metal fight over and over again.” Given how many Marvel movies have received similar criticisms over the years, it sounds like the Avengers directors inherited the same issues with their approach to adapting Stålenhag’s graphic novel.

2

The Electric State Fails To Replicate Steven Spielberg

As It Draws From Other Films, The Russos Fail To Match Spielberg’s Iconic Style

One can immediately see the influence that Steven Spielberg’s movies had on the Russo Brothers with their adaptation of The Electric State. As the story centers around a lonely child who makes new friends and fights overwhelming odds, one can find traces of classics like E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial in this coming-of-age sci-fi adventure. It’s understandable that the Russos drew from Spielberg’s works for a family-friendly take on Stålenhag’s story.

Unfortunately, TechRadar‘s Tom Power wrote in a review that the Russos’ movie “lacks the childlike wonder and awe that perfuse” the classics that Spielberg directed. Considering the source material featured a darker, more melancholy tale, it seems that the tone the Russos tried to replicate in their film failed to match the dystopian story that inspired it. Also, since the movie seems to hinge too much on ’90s nostalgia, their take on Spielberg’s style only appears more like disingenuous pandering.

1

The Electric State Doesn’t Use Its Talent Well

Humans Take The Back Seat In This Robotic Road Trip

While the robots may be The Electric State‘s main attractions, the story is nothing without a human heart. Unfortunately, despite featuring two A-list leads, it seems that the film has failed to take full advantage of its mᴀssive talent. Megan Garside of GamesRadar+ claimed that the ’90s-era robots overshadow Brown and Pratt’s lead characters, with their storylines feeling “severely underdeveloped with little backstory.” It is especially discouraging that Garside claimed the characters were “fully fleshed out” in Stålenhag’s novel.

On top of that, Looper also wrote that, even with so many other big names in the film’s cast, they fail to “elevate the material [given to them] due to how little of interest is on the page.” Despite featuring Brown and Pratt alongside stars Ke Huy Quan, Giancarlo Esposito, Woody Harrelson, Brian Cox, Anthony Mackie, and Colman Domingo, The Electric State reportedly leaves them all little to work with as they play “archetypal” roles in the film’s “generic quest.“

Source: Rotten Tomatoes, Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, Looper, GamesRadar+, TechRadar, Vanity Fair