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It’s okay.

I think that’s how you’d describe Millie Bobbie Brown’s film career so far. It’s okay.

To be fair she is only 21 so there is plenty of time to turn it around but she is so good in Stranger Things, twice Emmy nominated no less, that it’s a bit of a surprise that none of her movie outings have given her the opportunity to showcase her obvious skills. Ariana Greenblatt, four years her junior, has done Avengers: Endgame, In the Heights and Barbie. Julia Butters, two years younger again, has worked with Tarantino and Spielberg. Yet with two Godzilla movies and her leads in both Enola Holmes, Damsel and this everything that Brown has done has just been okay. 

In fact if you believe the reviews for Electric State you’d think it can’t even be described with that level of platitude. The press write ups have been absolutely brutal, way more than the movie in any way deserves. This has to be about more than the movie itself. It could be because at $320 million the production budget was so high, it might be because the directors had previously made the last two Avengers movies which found a huge amount of success financially and critically and it might be because Millie Bobby Brown is someone of great interest to the tabloid media, all of which gets mean-spirited journalists sharpening their brickbats. It really isn’t that bad though. 

As I said, it’s okay. 

The best way of summing up the Electric State is describing is as a cross between The Creator, Gareth Edwards superb sci-fi film from a year and a half ago, and Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Like Edwards’ movie it features the fall out from a war between humans and robots but here all of the bots are metal recreations of cartoon characters, advertising logos and fairground mascots. Their leader is Mr. Peanut, the shelled and edible kernel poster child of Planters Nuts, which is a little random as he seems to be the only one that is actually from a real world company (maybe Planters stumped up a chunk of the substantial budget) but around him are similarly quirky automatons. This does add an element of whimsy and originality to what is a fairly familiar plot, and this works in its favour.

Brown plays a young woman who has lost her whole family but is drawn into the district where the defeated droids are being allowed to live out their odd existence, which as suggested feels like a post apocalyptic toon town. I’m not sure why you’d give a mail delivery drone a Betty Boo face or why a barber’s chair needs sentience but this is the world we are in. Nonsensical or not though it is quite entertaining and like Ryan Reynolds film IF, it does give opportunity for a raft of voice performances from A-List actors. In fact the rest of the cast is equally impressive with Chris Pratt, Stanley Tucci and Giancarlo Esposito leading the support. Holly Hunter turns up at one point as does Colman Domingo but I’m pretty sure he did his scene over Zoom. Ke Huy Quan gets to play one of the people and one of the robots. Millie Bobby Brown might not have had a celebrated film career but a lot of those others have been recognised by the Academy.

Yes, the movie has emotional moments it cannot hope to earn and it is all pretty daft, but it has heart. Visually it is also pretty good, which I think is the reason it exists at all. 

There is nothing on Millie Bobby Brown’s upcoming slate that looks to break this run of mediocrity (apart from the last season of Stranger Things of course, but one day I’m sure that will change. 

For now though, it’s okay. 

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