I Watched Netflix's The Electric State, And I Was Honestly Astounded By The Dark Places Millie Bobby Brown's New Movie Went

Warning: SPOILERS for The Electric State are plugged in.

Everyone seems to be dunking on the 2025 Netflix movie The Electric State. In the run-up to this weekend’s big streaming debut, critical reactions for The Russo Brothers’ latest movie were so severe that we literally headlined them as not “holding back.” For some, that’s a clear sign that they should steer clear, but my parents taught me to keep an open mind and run into cultural trash fires to find something positive.

Unfortunately, in this particular scenario, the only positive thing is that for once, I seem to be on the side of popular opinion. That's something I’ll hold onto, as after watching The Electric State, I’m surprised that a Netflix subscription-driver so inspired by Steven Spielberg’s blockbusters of the past went to a very dark place in its finale.

Consider this your last chance to avoid spoilers, because I need to talk about the ending to really cut to the bone of what bothers me. If you’re really in the mood to learn more without all the somber details, check out our official The Electric State review.

The Electric State’s Final Battle Forces Millie Bobby Brown’s Michelle Into An Unexpectedly Bleak Decision

Since The Electric State is so derivative of Ready Player One, I can warn you about what’s coming with one simple question: “What if the Oasis’ survival hinged on assisted suicide?” I’m not trying to be flippant here, as that’s exactly what’s on the line towards the end of Michelle’s journey. As it turns out her genius kid brother Christopher (Woody Norman), presumed dead years ago after a massive car crash, is still alive… sort of.

His genius mind is apparently all that’s keeping the digital world run by Sentre from going, in the words of its dastardly CEO Ethan Skate (Stanley Tucci), “from utterly flawless to complete dogshit.” The latter option seems to be the choice of Joe and Anthony Russo, as well as screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely.

As we see Michelle overcome her disdain of Neurocasters to speak to Christopher, who's been kept in medical captivity ever since his disappearance, the siblings have one final heart to heart. After all the young man has seen in the world through the eyes of a Kid Cosmo bot, he feels guilty for aiding Skate in his digital pacification of the world. Which leads to this final choice:

By the time we get to the end of The Electric State, the message seems to be one of letting go of past grief and moving on with your future. Why else would Michelle be forced into killing her brother, even after proposing his consciousness could live forever in a new robot? But just when you think that she and Keats (Chris Pratt) are about to bond together in their mutual loss, we learn two things: Keats’ robo friend Herman (Anthony Mackie) didn’t die during the final battle, and Christopher’s consciousness did survive in his Kid Cosmo droid.

If this picture had the guts to stick to this huge decision, I might give it credit for approaching a very heavy topic in what’s been advertised as a run-of-the-mill family friendly blockbuster. That’s not even close to what happened here, as The Electric State’s “big swing” misses when compared to what it’s trying to say.

I Don’t Think I’ve Seen A Bigger Betrayal Of Message As What We Saw With The Electric State

There are several reasons to pan The Electric State: it’s clearly cribbing off of Ready Player One, it wastes an all-star cast of A-list talent, and that bummer version piano cover of “Wonderwall” is… a choice. However, my major disagreement with writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely’s adaptation of Simon Stålenhag’s graphic novel comes from how it betrays the message at the heart of that somber choice.

Imagine if Avengers: Endgame saw Chris Evans’ Captain America go back in time after defeating Thanos, only to live happily ever after with Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell). Oh wait, that totally DID happen, and as my thoughts on Steve Rogers’ Captain America era will prove, that’s a decision I’ve always had a problem with.

If you were to expand that problem to the tune of $320 million and market it as fun for the whole family, you’d get The Electric State. That truthfully pisses me off, as you could have really dug into the themes of grief and loss in this scenario. I mean, there’s even a line of dialogue given to Brian Cox’s Base-bot Popfly that sums up what they were trying to say with this picture:

If this Netflix original had focused on that shopping mall of robots and maybe introduced some humans sympathetic to their cause, we could have had an interesting movie. That’s not how we do things in Ted’s Casa though, and as a result, The Electric State went from merely derivative and uninteresting to totally appalling.

Although I don’t begrudge any family that feels using an escapist Chris Pratt/Millie Bobbie Brown adventure film as a tool to teach children about assisted suicide, I think there are some more scholarly methods that would do the job much better. But don’t let me scare you off, dear readers.

Perhaps you are another person who likes to run towards pop culture trash fires to form your own opinion. If you are, and if you dare, The Electric State is waiting for you to hook in and ride it out. Maybe you’ll get something out of it, but as far as my final summation goes, this flick doesn’t even have the juice to run a Matchbox car.

I’m all of a sudden feeling worried about The Russos' return for Avengers: Doomsday and Secret Wars, but I’m sure it won’t pass. But much like Ready Player One, perhaps the nicest thing I'll be able to say about this film, and those upcoming Marvel movies, is that composer Alan Silvestri still brings the heat with his musical score, bummer Oasis cover included.