Movie Reviews

Netflix’s The Electric State belongs in the scrap heap

Published

12 months ago

March 14, 2025

Netflix’s The Electric State belongs in the scrap heap

It is hard to describe how utterly joyless and devoid of imaginative ideas The Electric State is. Netflix’s latest feature codirected by Joe and Anthony Russo takes many visual cues from Simon Stålenhag’s much-lauded 2018 illustrated novel, but the film’s leaden performances and meandering story make it feel like a project borne out by a streamer that sees its subscribers as easily impressed dolts who hunger for slop.

While you can kind of see where some of the money went, it’s exceedingly hard to understand why Netflix reportedly spent upward of $300 million to produce what often reads like an idealized, feature-length version of the AI-generated “movies” littering social media. With a budget that large and a cast so stacked, you would think that The Electric State might, at the very least, be able to deliver a handful of inspired set pieces and characters capable of leaving an impression. But all this clunker of a movie really has to offer is nostalgic vibes and groan-inducing product placement.

Set in an alternate history where Walt Disney’s invention of simple automatons eventually leads to a devastating war, The Electric State centers Michelle (Millie Bobby Brown), a rebellious teen orphan desperate to escape her abusive home. Like most kids around her age, Michelle’s world was turned upside down during the brutal human / robot conflict that began with thinking machines demanding equal rights as sentient beings. But whereas most of her peers lost loved ones specifically because of the war, an ordinary car crash is what tears Michelle’s family apart and leads to her being adopted by loutish layabout Ted (Jason Alexander).

With her parents and brilliant younger brother Christopher (Woody Norman) seemingly dead, Michelle doesn’t feel like there’s all that much to live for. Much like her chaotic adoptive home life, school feels like a prison to Michelle because of the way children are expected to learn everything using Neurocasters, bulky headsets that transport wearers into virtual realities. Though many people like Ted gleefully strap their Neurocasters on, the technology disgusts Michelle, in part because of how they were first created as tools to give humans an edge in the machine war.

Given how people still live in fear of being attacked by the few surviving robots sequestered in the Exclusion Zone, Michelle can’t fathom why other people are so game to tune the real world out. Michelle herself is constantly looking over her shoulder in case a bloodthirsty machine finds its way into her room. But when one of them actually does, she’s charmed by the fact that it looks like one of her favorite cartoon characters. And she’s shocked when it tells her (through canned catchphrases from the cartoon) that Christopher is actually alive.

Though Michelle’s new robot friend looks very much like one of Stålenhag’s illustrations, its vocal impairment makes it read as a cutesy spin on the live-action Transformers’ take on Bumblebee. As it urges Michelle to follow it on a mission to find Christopher, you can almost hear the Russos and screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely patting themselves on the back for creating a character who encapsulates everything about The Electric State’s war-torn world. It’s a damaged thing that just wants to be seen as a person and given the chance to live its life in peace. Those details could have made for an interesting narrative if there were any more depth to them or if Brown could muster up even an ounce of chemistry with her CGI companion. But The Electric State is much more concerned with simply showing you as many of its broken machines as it possibly can.

Outside of a multitude of cultural references meant to remind you that it’s set in the ’90s, and shots of Neurocaster users lying passed out on the street like junkies, The Electric State never feels very interested in doing the kind of worldbuilding necessary to make movies like it work. Instead, it simply spells out that the inventor of the Neurocaster, Ethan Skate (Stanley Tucci), is a villain who wants Colonel Marshall Bradbury (Giancarlo Esposito) to capture Michelle’s robot. And Bradbury’s chasing after the pair gives the film a way to show how littered The Electric State’s world is with the rusted frames of machines destroyed during the war.

The movie becomes that much more of a slog once Michelle crosses paths with boring smuggler Keats (a profoundly charmless Chris Pratt) and his wisecracking robo-friend Herman (Anthony Mackie), who make a living selling things they scavenge from the Exclusion Zone. Unlike Brown’s Michelle, Pratt and Mackie actually do manage to come across as people who have lived through a sort of apocalypse and become much weirder due to their general isolation from the outside world. Their knowledge of the Exclusion Zone and access to vehicles makes them perfect to get Michelle and her robot to their destination. But the sheer number of jokes about Twinkies and Big Mouth Billy Bass (again, this is the ’90s) that The Electric State has Keats spit out is enough to make you root for Bradbury.

Image: Netflix

Part of the problem is that The Electric State is never all that funny, though the movie certainly thinks it is as it starts to introduce some of its more unusual robot characters like mail-bot Penny Pal (Jenny Slate), spider-like fortune telling machine Perplexo (Hank Azaria), and their leader, Mr. Peanut (Woody Harrelson). You can almost imagine The Electric State working if it were more focused on the lives of the pariah machines — all of whom are somewhat evocative of Sid’s horrific creations in Toy Story.

But rather than tapping into those characters’ potential, the movie spends its last third rushing headlong into tiresome action sequences that fall far short of what you would expect from such an expensive project. Ultimately, The Electric State leaves you with the distinct sense that Netflix greenlit it assuming that the Russo bros. + IP + a bunch of well-known actors would = a movie people would reflexively want to watch. But that math simply doesn’t add up, and this feels like an instance where you’d be much better off just reading the book.

The Electric State also stars Colman Domingo, Ke Huy Quan, Martin Klebba, Alan Tudyk, Susan Leslie, and Rob Gronkowski. The movie is now streaming on Netflix.

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Movie Reviews

Movie Review: Here comes “THE BRIDE!”, audacious and wild – Rue Morgue

Published

3 hours ago

March 5, 2026

Press Room

Movie Review: Here comes “THE BRIDE!”, audacious and wild – Rue Morgue

That’s both a promise and a challenge she delivers, since what follows may rub some viewers the wrong way. Yet Gyllenhaal’s full-throttle commitment to her vision is compelling in and of itself, and she has marshalled an absolutely smashing-looking and -sounding production. The story proper begins in 1936 Chicago, which, like everything and everyplace else in the movie, has been luminously shot by cinematographer Lawrence Sher and sumptuously conjured by production designer Karen Murphy. Her involvement is appropriate given that her previous credits include Bradley Cooper’s A STAR IS BORN and Baz Luhrmann’s ELVIS, since among other things, THE BRIDE! is a nostalgic musical. Its Frankenstein (Christian Bale), who has taken the name of his maker, is obsessed with big-screen tuners, and imagines himself in elaborate song-and-dance numbers. (Considering the reception to JOKER: FOLIE À DEUX, one must applaud the daring of Warner Bros. for greenlighting another expensive film in which a tormented protagonist has that kind of fantasy life.)

THE BRIDE! may be revisionist on many levels, but its characterization of its “monster” holds true to past screen incarnations from Karloff’s to Elordi’s: His scarred appearance masks a lonely soul who desires companionship. Frankenstein has arrived in Chicago to seek out Dr. Cornelia Euphronious (Annette Bening), correctly believing she has the scientific know-how to create an appropriate mate for him. Rather than piece one together, Dr. Euphronious resurrects the corpse of Ida (Jessie Buckley), whose consorting with underworld types led to her brutal death. Previously chafing against the man’s world she inhabited in life, she becomes even more defiant and unruly as a revenant, apparently possessed by the spirit of Shelley herself, declaiming in free-associative sentences and quoting rebellious literature.

Buckley, currently an Oscar favorite for her very different literary-inspired role in HAMNET, tears into the role of the Bride (who now goes by the name Penny) with invigorating abandon that bursts off the screen. Unsure of her identity yet overflowing with self-confident bravado, she’s the opposite of the sensitive “Frank,” but they’re united by the world that stands against them. That becomes literal when a violent incident sends them on the lam, road-tripping to New York City and beyond, on a trail inspired by the films of Ronnie Reed (Jake Gyllenhaal), Frank’s favorite song-and-dance-man star.

With THE BRIDE!, Gyllenhaal has made a film that’s at once her very own and a feverish homage to all sorts of cinema past and present. It’s a horror story, a lovers-on-the-run movie, a crime thriller, a musical and more, and historical fealty be damned if it makes for a good scene (as when Penny and Frank sneak into a 3D movie over a decade before such features became popular). In-references are everywhere: It might just be a coincidence that the couple’s travels take them past Fredonia, NY (cf. “Freedonia” in the Marx Brothers’ DUCK SOUP), but it’s certainly no accident that the former Ida is targeted by a crime boss named Lupino, referencing the actress and pioneering filmmaker whose works included noirs and women’s-issues stories. Penny’s exploits lead legions of admiring women to adopt her look and anarchic attitude, echoing the first JOKER (while a headline calls them “Twisted Sisters”), and the use of one Irving Berlin song in a Frankensteinian context immediately recalls a classic comedic take on the property.

Whether the audience should be put in mind of a spoof at a key point in a film with different goals is another matter. At times like these, Gyllenhaal’s pastiche ambitions overtake emotional investment in the story. As strong as the two lead performances are (Bale is quite moving, conveying a great deal of soul from behind his extensive prosthetics), it’s easier to feel for them in individual scenes than during the entire course of the just-over-two-hour running time. The diversions can be entertaining, to be sure, but they also result in an uncertainty of tone. The dissonance continues straight through to the end, where the filmmaker’s choice of closing-credits song once again suggests we’re not supposed to take all this too seriously.

There’s nonetheless much to admire and enjoy about THE BRIDE!, and this kind of risk-taking by a major studio is always to be encouraged (especially considering that we’ll see how long that lasts at Warner Bros. once Paramount takes it over). Beyond the terrific work by the aforementioned actors, there’s fine support from Peter Sarsgaard and Penelope Cruz as detectives on Penny and Frank’s heels, with Sandy Powell’s lavish costumes and Hildur Guðnadóttir’s rich, varied score vital to fashioning this fully imagined world. Kudos also to makeup and prosthetics designer Nadia Stacey and to Chris Gallaher and Scott Stoddard, who did those honors on Frank, for their visceral, evocative work. Uneven as it may be, THE BRIDE! is also as alive! as any film you’ll likely see this year.

Movie Reviews

Maxime Giroux – ‘In Cold Light’ movie review

Published

15 hours ago

March 4, 2026

Press Room

Maxime Giroux – ‘In Cold Light’ movie review

(Credits: Far Out / Elevation Pictures)

Wed 4 March 2026 9:30, UK

Maxime Giroux – ‘In Cold Light’

The action is relentless in the complex thriller In Cold Light, a tense combination of crime and fugitive tale and family drama. It is the third feature and first English language film by Maxime Giroux, best known for a very different kind of film, the critically acclaimed 2014 drama Felix & Meira.

The tension and high energy of In Cold Light almost overwhelm the film, but are relieved, barely, by moments of character development and introspection that keep the audience pulling for the restrained and outwardly cold main character.

Speaking at the film’s Canadian premiere, director Giroux admitted he found creating an action film a challenge. Part of his approach was using very minimal dialogue, especially for the central character, letting the action speak for itself, and allowing silence to intensify suspense. Giroux has said he likes the lack of dialogue and speaks highly of the importance of silence in cinema; he prefers using “physical aspects of communication” in his films.

Young Ava Bly (Maika Monroe) is a competent and businesslike drug dealer, working in partnership with her brother Tom (Jesse Irving) and a small team. As the film begins, Ava has just been released from a brief prison sentence. She is hoping to return to her former position, but her brother’s associates consider her a risk due to her recent incarceration. While she works to re-establish herself, a shocking encounter with a corrupt police officer sends Ava’s life into chaos and forces her to go on the run.

Ava’s fugitive experience introduces a new character, to whom Ava turns for help: her father, Will Bly, played by Troy Kotsur, known for his excellent performance in CODA. Their first interaction is handled in a fascinating way, as Will is deaf and the two communicate through sign language. This, of course, provides another form of the silent interaction the director prefers; he explained that much of the father-daughter interaction was rewritten with the actor in mind. Their conflict is nicely expressed through a scene in which their initial conversation is intermittently cut off by a faulty light which goes out periodically, making communication through sign momentarily impossible, nicely expressing the rift between father and daughter.

As Ava continues to evade danger, her escape becomes complicated by new information, placing her in a painful dilemma. We gradually learn more about Ava, her background, and her character through occasional flashbacks and glimpses of her dreams. The plot becomes more complex and more poignant, and gains features of a mystery as well as an action tale, as she is pressed to choose from among equally unacceptable alternatives.

The climax of her efforts to protect both herself and those close to her comes to a head as she meets with the director of a rival drug gang. Veteran actress Helen Hunt is perfect in the minor but significant role of Claire, the rival drug lord, who plays odd mind games with Ava in an intriguing psychological fencing match. It’s an unusual scene, in which Ava’s personality is made clearer, and Claire’s understated dominance and casual speech do not quite conceal the threat she represents.

The frantic pace and emotional turmoil are enhanced by the camera work, which tends to focus tightly on Ava, and by a harsh, minimal musical score that sets the tone without distracting from the action. Giroux chose to shoot the film in Super 60; he describes digital as “too perfect” for the look he was going for, and since “Ava is rough,” the film portrays her better. The director describes the entire movie as “rough,” in fact, and deliberately chose a dark, washed-out look for much of the footage, occasionally using light and colour, in the form of fireworks, lightning, or a colourful carnival, to both relieve and emphasise the darkness.

The dynamic, intense story holds the attention in spite of the lengthy, sometimes repetitive chase scenes and subdued dialogue. Ava’s predicament, and the difficult decisions she is forced to make, are made surprisingly relatable, from the initial disaster that starts the action to the surprising flash-forward that concludes the film, on as high a note as the situation could allow. Fans of action movies will definitely enjoy this one.

Movie Reviews

Jeremy Schuetze’s ‘ANACORETA’ (2022) – Movie Review – PopHorror

Published

1 day ago

March 4, 2026

Press Room

Jeremy Schuetze’s ‘ANACORETA’ (2022) – Movie Review – PopHorror

PopHorror had the chance to check out Anacoreta (2022) ahead of its streaming release! Does this meta-horror flick provide interesting story telling or is it a confusing mess.

Let’s have a look…

Synopsis

A group of friends heads to a secluded woodland cabin for a weekend getaway, planning to film an experimental horror movie. As the shoot progresses, the project begins to fall apart—until a real and terrifying presence emerges from the darkness.

Anacoreta is directed by Jeremy Schuetze. It was written by Jeremy Schuetze and Matt Visser. The film stars Antonia Thomas (Bagman 2024), Jesse Stanley (Raf 2019), Jeremy Schuetze (Jennifer’s Body 2009), and Matt Visser (A Lot Like Christmas 2021)

My Thoughts

Antonia Thomas delivered an outstanding performance as the female lead in Anacoreta. It was remarkable to watch her convey such a wide range of emotions with authenticity and depth. I was continually impressed by her ability to switch seamlessly between different dialects. I absolutely loved her delivery of the dialogue of telling The Scorpion and the Frog fable.

Anacoreta employs a distinctive, meta-horror style of storytelling. The narrative follows a group of friends creating a “scripted reality” horror film, and as the plot unfolds, the boundary between their staged production and their actual lives becomes increasingly blurred. This was interesting, but at the same time frustrating as a viewer.