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.
This is an Amblin-inspired, big-budget adventure with dystopian, science-fiction wonder, nostalgic callbacks, well-liked stars (Chris Pratt! Millie Bobby Brown! Stanley Tucci! Giancarlo Esposito! Ke Huy Quan!) and the directors ( Joe and Anthony Russo ) behind some of the highest-earning movies of all time.
In theory, it should work. A kid on a dangerous, cross-country journey with a robot that may or may not be her brother whom she thought was dead? A reluctant, jaded adult companion who’s quick with a one-liner? The Electric State should be some future Spielberg’s new favorite movie, the one that they’ll reference in their Oscars speech as the thing that made them want to make movies. And yet it’s lacking a spark and a soul that might distinguish it as memorable or special. Worse, considering everything it has going for it (including a reported budget that may have exceeded US$300 million), The Electric State is kind of dull.
Photo: AP
The Electric State was loosely based on an illustrated novel by Simon Stalenhag that was released in 2018 and quickly scooped up for movie adaptation purposes with Marvel veterans Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely writing the script. Set in the early 1990s, this is a world in which service robots have risen up and demanded rights and freedom. The humans respond by going to war.
This four-year war is skimmed over in a montage at the start of the film and, by 1994, Mr. Peanut (Woody Harrelson) is signing a peace treaty with Bill Clinton and the remaining robots are exiled to rot in the desert. The human victory was attributed to the drone creations of a Steve Jobs-ian tech billionaire Ethan Skate (Tucci), who is soon hawking his “Neurocasters” to the public. They scoop it up and soon society is just a bleak wasteland of screen zombies content to let their avatars work while they relax and fantasize a way out of their downtrodden existence.
There are shades of The Creator, WALL-E, Ready Player One and many, many more films in here. But no one gets mad that something is derivative if it’s also good. It’s only when the kitchen sink references are so clear and come up so short that it becomes a real problem.
Photo: AP
Brown plays Michelle, an angry, orphaned teenager who lost her entire family not in the war, but in a car wreck. The one she misses the most is her little brother Christopher (Woody Norman, giving the best, most emotionally authentic performance in the film), a reluctant child prodigy. One day, a robot of a cartoon character they used to watch together turns up at her foster home, speaking only in the character’s catchphrases. But after some gestures toward a photograph, she starts to believe that this robot is, somehow, Christopher, or at least someone who can lead her to the real Christopher. And thus starts their journey across America, and into the robot “exclusion zone” to figure out this puzzle. They soon team up with a war veteran/smuggler Keats (Pratt) and his snarky robot sidekick (Anthony Mackie, for your Marvel bingo card) and try to evade Esposito’s robot bounty hunter.
The robots they find in the exclusion zone are voiced by an army of celebrities you’ll go insane trying to place before angrily resorting to IMDb, including Harrelson, Hank Azaria, Brian Cox and Jenny Slate. Their designs are thoughtful and remarkable and should evoke a sense of awe in the viewer at the sheer ingenuity behind this film, where many of the most impressive shots seem to be the recreations of Stalenhag’s illustrations of dismantled, decaying robots. The action, however, gets mind-numbingly repetitive by the end of the bloated runtime.
Pratt and Brown, while fine individually, don’t really find their groove as partners on this journey either. Pratt is kind of just doing his thing and gets the few clever one-liners in the script. Brown, meanwhile, seems a little bored by yet another teen adventure role. And both ultimately look like movie stars in ‘90s cosplay, which might be a metaphor for the larger failure of the movie.
Photo: AP
The Electric State was, of course, not made by algorithm, which is an admittedly cheap shot for a Netflix original. Unfortunately, it just feels that way.
Photo: AP
The small platform at Duoliang Train Station in Taitung County’s Taimali Township (太麻里) served villagers from 1992 to 2006, but was eventually shut down due to lack of use. Just 10 years later, the abandoned train station had become widely known as the most beautiful station in Taiwan, and visitors were so frequent that the village had to start restricting traffic. Nowadays, Duoliang Village (多良) is known as a bit of a tourist trap, with a mandatory, albeit modest, admission fee of NT$10 giving access to a crowded lane of vendors with a mediocre view of the ocean and the trains
For many people, Bilingual Nation 2030 begins and ends in the classroom. Since the policy was launched in 2018, the debate has centered on students, teachers and the pressure placed on schools. Yet the policy was never solely about English education. The government’s official plan also calls for bilingualization in Taiwan’s government services, laws and regulations, and living environment. The goal is to make Taiwan more inclusive and accessible to international enterprises and talent and better prepared for global economic and trade conditions. After eight years, that grand vision is due for a pulse check. RULES THAT CAN BE READ For Harper Chen (陳虹宇), an adviser
Traditionally, indigenous people in Taiwan’s mountains practice swidden cultivation, or “slash and burn” agriculture, a practice common in human history. According to a 2016 research article in the International Journal of Environmental Sustainability, among the Atayal people, this began with a search for suitable forested slopeland. The trees are burnt for fertilizer and the land cleared of stones. The stones and wood are then piled up to make fences, while both dead and standing trees are retained on the plot. The fences are used to grow climbing crops like squash and beans. The plot itself supports farming for three years.
President William Lai (賴清德) on Nov. 25 last year announced in a Washington Post op-ed that “my government will introduce a historic US$40 billion supplementary defense budget, an investment that underscores our commitment to defending Taiwan’s democracy.” Lai promised “significant new arms acquisitions from the United States” and to “invest in cutting-edge technologies and expand Taiwan’s defense industrial base,” to “bolster deterrence by inserting greater costs and uncertainties into Beijing’s decision-making on the use of force.” Announcing it in the Washington Post was a strategic gamble, both geopolitically and domestically, with Taiwan’s international credibility at stake. But Lai’s message was exactly
RSS