Movie review
March 7, 2025 · 125 min · PG-13
Woke Score
Lower is better
Breakdown
These are the editorial factors and ratings behind our score for The Electric State.
Woke representation / casting
Supporting roles use diverse actors in visible parts that fit the alternate-1990s U.S. setting; no obvious story mismatches or overt signaling, though the casting director’s established diversity advocacy adds minor context.
Woke political dialogue
Occasional lines touch on prejudice and robot rights, but these remain limited and do not dominate conversations or feel like extended lectures.
Identity-driven story themes
The added robot civil-rights campaign and exclusion-zone confinement create a visible allegory for marginalized groups facing oppression and corporate control; critics noted it as heavy-handed and preachy, though it stays secondary to the personal quest and anti-greed plot.
Western institutional / cultural critique
Review
The Electric State is a 2025 Netflix sci-fi action-adventure film directed by the Russo brothers. An orphaned teen named Michelle teams up with a mysterious robot named Cosmo and a smuggler named Keats to cross a dystopian alternate-1990s America and rescue her brother from a tech CEO who exploits advanced mind-control technology. The story adds a noticeable robot civil rights subplot where sentient machines and corporate mascots campaign against prejudice and confinement in an exclusion zone, framed through a heavy-handed allegory that critics called preachy and reductive.
The story critiques tech corporations exploiting individuals and government policies confining defeated robots, presented as broad sci-fi dystopia without specific modern activist framing around patriarchy, systemic identity issues, or cultural institutions.
Woke character or canon changes
The adaptation significantly amplifies the source graphic novel by adding and centering a prominent robot/animatronic equal-rights movement and civil-rights leader figures, introducing ideological framing around prejudice and collective identity not present in Stålenhag’s original work.
Anti-woke backlash and complaints
Scattered reviews and viewer comments criticize the forced civil-rights metaphor (especially Mr. Peanut as activist) as awkward or agenda-tinged, but these form a small portion of overall reaction and are overshadowed by quality complaints; no major coordinated right-leaning outcry.
Creator track record context
Moderate influence from the Russo brothers’ past comments on films addressing political themes and Sarah Halley Finn’s explicit diversity priorities; writers and most producers show lower patterns, keeping the overall score from rising higher.
Production
