The new Netflix movie The Electric State features top stars like Chris Pratt and Millie Bobby Brown, but critics absolutely hate it.
The critics’ score average on Rotten Tomatoes is only 14%. However, audiences generally like the movie, giving it a 76% positive score.
According to the Rotten Tomatoes’ caption for the movie, “The Electric State is a spectacular adventure from the directors of Avengers: Endgame set in an alternate, retro-futuristic version of the 1990s.”
Paste reported that the movie had a whopping $320 million budget. Paste’s critic called it “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.”
Chris Pratt and Millie Bobby Brown pose after the press conference of “The Electric State” at the Four Seasons Hotel on February 27, 2025 in Madrid, Spain.
The other top reviewers were unsparing in their criticism.
David Fear of Rolling Stone panned the movie, calling it “Anthony and Joe Russo’s dystopian sci-fi trash heap.”
The Ringer’s Adam Nayman described the movie as “recycled, self-cannibalizing slop, a dystopian action movie for dystopian times.”
The Toronto Star’s Peter Howell dubbed the film a “clanking calamity.” The Chicago Sun-Times’ critic Richard Roeper described it as “a giant serving of empty calories.”
BBC reported that the movie ranked #1 on Netflix’s top-watched movie chart, and noted that Netflix has not confirmed or denied the budget reports.
However, regular viewers disagreed. “Might be going crazy but i actually really enjoyed this flick! Wish the beginning ‘war’ was longer? but all in all awesome movie, critics suck watch it for yourself!” wrote one person on the Rotten Tomatoes website.
The movie was available for streaming on March 14, 2025.
Netflix’s Tudum explains that the movie is adapted from a 2018 graphic novel about a robot uprising. The film “is set in an alternate reality, sometime during the 1990s, and robots have already lost the war against humans,” according to Tudum.
