Electric State, The

Story

Michelle (Millie Bobby Brown) and her brother Christopher (Woody Norman) live in a world full of incredible technological advances, where sentient robots carry out all the tedious daily tasks that people don’t want to do. But trouble is brewing as the robots fight for the same rights as their human creators, triggering a devastating war. When humans almost wipe out the robots and banish the survivors to a desolate place called the Exclusion Zone, a new and dystopian era arises, with people living almost exclusively in virtual reality.

After the war and tragic loss of Christopher and her parents, a teenage Michelle is struggling to adjust. When a curious and friendly Cosmo bot crashes into her life and claims to be her brother, Michelle’s life is turned upside down once again. As she travels across America with her new friend Cosmo in tow, Michelle is also racing against the clock to uncover the truth of what really happened to Christopher.

Can she unite humans and bots in time to uncover the truth and change the world, or will she be too late?

Themes

War; humans vs robots; family, parent and sibling loss; grief; social division; dystopian society; artificial intelligence; self-sacrifice

Violence

The Electric State has some violence. For example:

There’s a lot of casual violence between humans and robots. The fighting features guns, tasers and laser guns, and it often leads to the deaths of both human and robot characters.
A character in military gear yells at a teenage boy for wearing a shirt with a robot on it.
A robot picks up tray and slams it down, destroying tables. People scream in background.
Michelle’s foster father verbally berates her and then physically shoves her to the ground.
A robot throws a BBQ from the top of a house. This causes an explosion that sends soldiers flying backwards and probably kills them.
Cosmo shoves a man backwards hard, and he lands on his back. The character then grabs a golf club and starts to beat Cosmo with it, while Michelle screams for them to stop.
Michelle’s foster father is injured after a fight and tries to call the police on both Cosmo and Michelle. Michelle tasers him in the neck, which electrocutes him. He passes out.
A character blasts another in the chest with a laser, leaving him to die.
A character gets angry at another character for unplugging his refrigerator. He then screams and hits the refrigerator repeatedly.
A man punches another man repeatedly in the stomach after getting shot and then grabs him by the throat.
Michelle drives a bulldozer into a character, destroying his robot avatar.
A man punches another in the stomach after a perceived insult.
A robot says, ‘I watched a Scav attack and dismember my closest friends in front of my eyes’.
A character rips off half of a robot’s head, causing him to scream in pain and fall to the floor.
A robot punches her hand into the abdomen of another robot, pulling out handfuls of wires and killing the other robot.
A man shoots another man with a laser gun, sending him flying backwards. He is impaled. A bloody piece of metal sticks out from his abdomen, blood leaks from his mouth, and he dies from his injuries.
Michelle and her friends return to a sanctuary that had been created for friendly bots, only to see that humans have burned it to the ground and many of their friends are dead. The floor is littered with the bodies of dismembered robots.
An adult man mentions that his mother was an alcoholic, hinting that she might have been abusive.
In a final battle scene, many robots are blown up in explosions and killed. This battle has a lot of exaggerated violence and is sometimes presented in a comic way.
Several human characters refer to the robots as ‘savages’ and ‘not human’.

Sexual references

The Electric State has some sexual references. For example:

Characters joke about an ‘8-inch model’ in reference to a penis.
A character jokes about not having the ‘stones’ to do something.

Alcohol, drugs and other substances

The Electric State shows some use of substances. For example:

A character says that his mother is a ‘3 bottle-a-day drunk’.
A human character is shown passed out on the street with a VR set on his head. He looks like he has overdosed.

Nudity and sexual activity

There’s no nudity and sexual activity in The Electric State.

Product placement

The following products are displayed or used in The Electric State:

Several popular news channels and talk shows are shown, including MTV, CNN, The Discovery Channel, NBC and 60 Minutes.
Several popular fast food franchises are either shown or mentioned, including Panda Express and McDonalds.
Characters are shown inside a Volkswagen van.
A Porsche is thrown at a building.
A character runs an illegal shop full of branded merchandise popular in the early 1990s, including Cabbage Patch Kids, Nintendo, SEGA, Twister, Big Mouth Billy Bass, GI Joe and Barbie.
Cosmo and Michelle use a Dr Pepper can to communicate.

Coarse language

The Electric State has frequent coarse language.

Ideas to discuss with your children

Based on the 2018 graphic novel of the same title by Simon Stålenhag, The Electric State is a dark science fiction comedy that touches on real-life political concerns about artificial intelligence, human rights and war.

This is a fun, dystopian-style movie for older teenagers. It’s not suitable for children under 13 years because of its violence, scary scenes and coarse language. We recommend parental guidance for children under 16 years because of its heavy themes of war, death and grief. Additionally, this movie uses AI to enhance the voice acting, so you might want to think about your position on this.

These are the main messages from The Electric State:

Treat everyone as equals despite differences.
Believe in yourself to make your own decisions.

Values in The Electric State that you could reinforce with your children include perseverance, community and family, support from others, and equality.

The Electric State could also give you the chance to talk with your children about real-life questions and issues like the following:

The robots want to be treated as equals, but both sides fight each other and start a war. How should we treat other people, even if they’re different? What would you do in this situation?
Do you think the scenario in this movie could happen if we spend too much time on our screens? Why or why not?
Do you think that it’s OK for the robots to attack humans to get what they want? What could they do instead?
Michelle’s foster father treats her very poorly. Does this represent foster care in reality? Curious children might want to discuss the topic of foster care.
The movie has a lot of violence, which is presented as comic or unreal because it’s against robots. This violence isn’t OK, even though it is ‘not real’.
Michelle chooses to take Christopher’s life to save the world. You might want to talk about this choice with your children.