The Electric State
Netflix | Release Date (Streaming): March 14, 2025 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
30
METASCORE
Generally unfavorable reviews based on 37 Critic Reviews
Positive:
1
Mixed:
16
Negative:
20
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
The TelegraphRobbie CollinMar 7, 2025
What fun it is to watch a film this expensive and not be able to quite work out where it’s going – or even if it might just stay put for a bit, and soak up the dustily poetic death-of-the-American century vibe. Read full review
60
SlashfilmWitney SeiboldMar 12, 2025
The Electric State is one of the most expensive films ever made, and one can see every dollar on the screen. The robots feel real, and their design, taken from Stålenhag's book, is fitfully unique. But one wonders why so much effort went into a movie that has almost nothing on its mind. Read full review
60
Total FilmMegan GarsideMar 7, 2025
The Russo brothers deliver a fun and very current take on tech vs humanity with a core message on how human connection conquers all in this visually stunning sci-fi family adventure. However, the rushed storyline and vast list of underdeveloped characters ultimately let the movie down. Read full review
60
EmpireJohn NugentMar 7, 2025
The Electric State loses some of the quiet profundity of the original text, but as a breezily watchable retrofuturistic jolly, it has just enough juice. Read full review
58
The AtlanticShirley LiMar 31, 2025
The Electric State is so transparently eager to satisfy as many demographics of viewers as possible that it proves its own message: that a world dependent on business interests and technological optimization dulls artistic potential and human ingenuity. All that’s left is a wasteland of half-baked ideas searching for a home. Read full review
50
USA TodayBrian TruittMar 14, 2025
Pratt can do lovable rogue in his sleep at this point, and Brown’s got a spunky young woman down pat. Both of them have some good lines and emotional moments but they mostly feel plug-and-play rather than mining anything new and exciting. Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comGlenn KennyMar 14, 2025
Ultimately, this is one of those movies where it seems okay if you like this sort of thing for a while, but after it crosses the 90-minute mark, it seems irretrievably a little much even if you like this sort of thing. Read full review
50
ColliderShaina WeatherheadMar 11, 2025
Overall, The Electric State doesn’t hold a candle to any of its esteemed cast’s other films, but impressive visual effects and great music help it from being a totally pointless foray into the wasteland. Read full review
45
The Daily BeastNick SchagerMar 11, 2025
The Electric State" is just about as derivative as a modern blockbuster can be, and worse is that it skates along from one cacophonous and jokey set piece to another as if on rails. Read full review
42
The PlaylistRodrigo PerezMar 12, 2025
The Electric State really aims to be an epic, spectacularly shaped, crowd-pleasing blockbuster, but missing the mark so often, it just veers more and more off course, to be a loud, blustery, hectic extravaganza that’s all noisy dressing and no depth or humanity. It says nothing and offers little other than a folding laundry distraction. Read full review
40
The Irish TimesTara BradyMar 13, 2025
The loud bangs and snarky zingers that powered their Marvel films towards box-office billions are fine for superheroes but not, it transpires, for a big-hearted teenage heroine and her robot chums. Read full review
40
Paste MagazineJim VorelMar 12, 2025
The Electric State is one hell of an artistically neutered, sanitized boondoggle, awe-inspiring in its deployment of expensive visuals but largely bereft of any kind of genuine wit, humor, warmth or adaptational deftness. Read full review
40
Vanity FairRichard LawsonMar 12, 2025
Save for a few likable robots, The Electric State is charmless and curiously dull. It’s almost as if all the money and tech in the world are not sufficient replacements for imagination. Read full review
40
NMEJames MottramMar 12, 2025
You won’t be able to shake the feeling that there’s a lack of heart and soul here. Read full review
40
IGNA.A. Dowd Mar 12, 2025
AI-loving Marvel hitmakers Joe and Anthony Russo join forces again with Netflix to deliver a $300-million sci-fi epic you can safely half-watch while doing the dishes or making dinner. Read full review
40
VarietyCourtney HowardMar 7, 2025
The filmmakers have diluted the source material, showing a clear lack of interest in making their creation just as haunting, searing and satisfying as the original product. Read full review
40
The GuardianPeter BradshawMar 7, 2025
The Electric State is a fundamentally unsatisfying and muddled film, even leaving aside the deja-vu. Read full review
38
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliMar 18, 2025
The Electric State has an epic look but that’s increasingly common in any movie with sci-fi elements. But, aside from the special effects, it feels unfinished, with the actors groping to inhabit barely-there characters. What does it say when Mr. Peanut has more personality than either of the main characters? Read full review
38
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperMar 13, 2025
The Electric State short-circuits from a severe case of Character Overload, with great actors mired in hopelessly silly and underwritten parts. Read full review
38
The Associated PressLindsey BahrMar 12, 2025
If an algorithm designed a classic, big-screen spectacle for the small-screen age, “The Electric State” probably wouldn’t be too far off the mark. Read full review
35
TheWrapMatt GoldbergMar 12, 2025
Everything in The Electric State feels done for convenience, so there’s no tension in the storytelling or the emotional stakes. It glides on a smooth track from point to point without ever considering how narrative friction would deepen the characters and the story. Read full review
30
SlateSam AdamsMar 14, 2025
The movie suffers from a constant lack, not of resources but of imagination, of inspiration—of, to put it simply, fun.
30
Rolling StoneDavid FearMar 14, 2025
It’s a bad movie, full stop. Which is a pity, because the pedigree looks great on paper. Read full review
25
Movie NationRoger MooreMar 17, 2025
Aimed at kids who’ll giggle at the adorably retro robots and snicker at the profanity, “Electric State” creates cringes you didn’t know you’d cringe about. Read full review
25
San Francisco ChronicleBob StraussMar 17, 2025
What can you say about a comic sci-fi adventure that’s neither funny nor thrilling, but is packed with awesomely rendered visuals of dumb-looking things? Read full review
25
New York PostJohnny OleksinskiMar 13, 2025
The plot is a watered-down grab-bag of old, tired ideas. Read full review
25
ObserverDylan RothMar 12, 2025
The Electric State is weighed down by a staggering tonnage of stuff, dozens of CGI robots wandering around and muttering off-camera jokes, clunky newsreels dumping details that end up contributing very little (but featuring MTV News anchor Kurt Loder as himself!), a total overload of boring, gray dreck. Read full review
20
We Got This CoveredCharlotte SimmonsMar 17, 2025
A power failure from top to bottom, The Electric State takes its revelatory source material and churns out cinematic poison of the most rancid order. Read full review
20
The TimesKevin MaherMar 14, 2025
The look is mid-period Transformers. The dramatic tension non-existent. And the performances uniformly weak. This is top-dollar tedium. Read full review
20
The New York TimesElisabeth VincentelliMar 13, 2025
Whereas the book is elliptical in narrative, muted in color palette and melancholy in mood, the movie is obvious, garish and just plain dumb. Read full review
20
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyMar 7, 2025
The actors are all game for anything, but this is thankless work, in which the mix of live action and animatronics has no magic. The same goes for the talented voice cast, which also includes Colman Domingo and Hank Azaria in small roles. Read full review
20
The IndependentClarisse LoughreyMar 7, 2025
The Electric State is somehow both punishingly obvious and completely incoherent. Read full review
16
The A.V. ClubAnna McKibbinMar 14, 2025
The Electric State isn’t playful and colorful, it isn’t soberly thoughtful, it isn’t bleak yet emotional. It’s just a slog. Read full review
16
IndieWireDavid EhrlichMar 7, 2025
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. Read full review
12
Slant MagazineJustin ClarkMar 12, 2025
There's nothing behind its contemptible eyes, no spine to house the fading diode that once contained a soul. Read full review
10
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriMar 14, 2025
There’s something truly off-putting about The Electric State’s palette of junk and colorless branded robots. By trying to give this world such weight and grit, the filmmakers have doubled down on its ugliness. Read full review
10
LooperAlistair RyderMar 7, 2025
The Electric State is a soulless exercise in the same vein as a "Borderlands" or an "Argylle," a joyless affair that feels cobbled together by studio executives who are trying so desperately hard to manufacture a crowd-pleasing success by replicating formulaic genre beats and characterizations, that they never once stop to ask why anybody would care about the story they're trying to tell. Read full review
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