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Okay,The Gray Manwas merely grim and lifeless, a forgettable action flick; those happen.
ButThe Electric Statebegs for playfulness, dynamism, some sense of dash and charm.
Honestly … it could use the comic expertise of the Joe and Anthony Russo of 20 years ago.
Its an action fantasy built on silliness.
Without a light touch, it becomes actively annoying.
This led to protests, uprisings, peace agreements, then an apocalyptic, full-on war.
Humans defeated the robots through a mechanized drone army controlled remotely by people wearing headsets.
Michelle and Cosmo set off on a journey to locate Chriss physical body.
To do so, they must join forces with Chris Pratts John Keats (!
There is, of course, the aforementioned Mr. Peanut (voiced by Woody Harrelson).
Theres a letter carrier called Penny Pal (Jenny Slate) that can rip peoples hearts out.
Theres a gruff and garrulous baseball pitching and hitting machine called Pop Fly (Brian Cox).
Theres a mechanical magician named Perplexo (Hank Azaria).
Theres a huge runaway football helmet (Rob Gronkowski).
Theres a sentient barbers chair armed with scissors, and a giant, piano-playing taco.
Youd think something like this would be somewhat funny.
Are they running from their former selves?
Did they buy into criticisms of the MCU as being too jokey?
To be clear,Pixelsisnot a good movie, but at least it embraced its inherent goofiness.
instead of trying to play it as a moment of disturbing violence.
Meanwhile, the buoyancy Millie Bobby Brown brought to her Netflix-producedEnola Holmesfilms has completely vanished.
Theres something truly off-putting aboutThe Electric States palette of junk and colorless branded robots.
By trying to give this world such weight and grit, the filmmakers have doubled down on its ugliness.
The Russos functional visual style isnt enough to bring any real creativity into this universe.
(Do they know any other way to introduce a character besides an ominous close-up of their feet?
Can they shoot two kids doing a fancy handshake without resorting toeight separate cuts?)
One longs for the sinewy action of aTransformersflick, or the imaginative gravity of something like the firstPacific Rim.
Or, hell, the CGI-fueled long takes of the Russos ownAvengerspictures.
EvenReal Steelpulled off the whole discarded-robot thing reasonably well.
Maybe studio notes arent always such a bad thing.
And yes, actors cost money, even if theyre just doing voices.
But theres something genuinely absurd about spending that much money to make a movie look this bad.
