We really were losing a war to vending machines?

Electric State might just be one of the most staggering wastes of resources and talent to hit the screen in years. Armed with a ludicrous budget and an all-star cast, this movie squanders every ounce of its potential in a messy, juvenile attempt at sci-fi storytelling that only children—or perhaps the most forgiving of viewers—could enjoy.

Let’s start with the plot, or lack thereof. It's riddled with holes so large they could swallow entire scenes whole. Characters make inexplicable choices, key events seem to happen out of nowhere, and the emotional beats the film desperately tries to hit fall flat because nothing is earned. There’s no weight, no coherence, just a loose string of visuals pretending to be a story.

But hey, why write a decent script when you can drown everything in licensed music? Electric State goes full “James Gunn cosplay,” stuffing every scene with pop tracks that feel completely out of place. Instead of enhancing the emotion or tension, these needle drops undercut every serious moment and reek of desperation—like the filmmakers thought if they just played enough familiar songs, we wouldn’t notice the soulless narrative underneath.

Visually, yes, it’s slick—but when you spend what this film spent, that’s the bare minimum. The sad part is that behind the camera and in front of it are incredibly talented people. Directors, VFX artists, and A-list actors who should’ve known better are left adrift in a project that seems to have been greenlit purely based on aesthetics and IP potential rather than substance.

In the end, Electric State feels like the cinematic equivalent of handing a child the keys to a spaceship and hoping for the best. It's loud, shallow, and directionless, a bloated mess that burns money like rocket fuel and goes absolutely nowhere.