What do you expect for a budget of $320 million? A good movie?

The Electric State, based on a 2018 graphic novel, is one of the most expensive Netflix movies ever made, and to be fair, you can see the money on the screen with some tremendous special effects. However, there is not much of anything else in the film and it just lacked any kind of heart, any type of spark.

Joe and Anthony Russo directed the film, reteaming with writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely from their MCU days. They worked together on Captain America: Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. Those are classic Marvel films. This one is not those.

According to IMDB, “With humans isolated in their VR helmets and a continuing battle against a strange breed of monstruous drones in the wake of a technological meltdown, a teenage girl named Michelle and a robot travel the West Coast of the U.S in search of the girl’s missing brother.“

One thing for sure, this movie has an astounding cast. Starring Millie Bobby Brown and Chris Pratt, the film also featured either live action or voice over performances from Stanley Tucci, Woody Norman, Woody Harrelson, Alan Tudyk, Jason Alexander, Holly Hunter, Tuc Watkins, Giancarlo Esposito, Ke Huy Quan, Colman Domingo, Anthony Mackie, Hank Azaria, Rob Gronkowski, Brian Cox, Jenny Slate, Greg Cromer, and Kurt Loder.

Despite the loaded cast, this movie was a slog, taking pieces that we have seen from other films and mashing them together into a lesser contraption.

I immediately was pulled out when one of the characters was Mister Peanut. Yes, Mister Peanut from Planters. The character design of the robots, almost all of the robots, was so childish and cartoonish that I had no connection to them at all.

The biggest problem with that is that the robots did not fit with the tone being set up in this movie. Had this been a satire or a straight up action/comedy, maybe these robots would have worked, but this movie tried to be a serious film with sprinkling of humor throughout, and it did not work. Had this movie really embraced the ridiculousness of the film, it might have been a much better movie.

While there is a great cast, there is not any characters with any depth to them at all. They are all, with the possible exception of Millie Bobby Brown, one-dimensional characters that lack any real development through the film. Chris Pratt played the same character that he has played in many different movies. How are you supposed to give character development to Mister Peanut?

Electric State missed the mark badly. It had a chance to do something new and different, but slipped back into the most cliched story you could expect and just could not nail the tone. It tried to be too many different things and failed at all of them. A real disappointment. Hope the Russos do a better job with Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars over the next few years.

1.2 stars