It was a very meh movie. 5/10 is my rating for it.
I enjoyed the robot designs and their over the top kooky personalities. Chris Pratt gives a fun performance but it's your standard fun guy part he's known for. The film takes place in the 90s and leans on the nostalgia for it's aesthetic and music. Be prepared for malls, Mtv news, and the flying toaster screen saver. The soundtrack does the Westworld thing and plays 80s and 90s hits with the slow piano bit.
Millie Brown isn't great in this. She's not a Mary Sue or a girl boss in this, her character is just kinda bland. The two antagonist, Giancarlo Esposito and Stanley Tucci, are not great. Giancarlo's General Bradbury is the same Esposito villain character we've seen before. And Tucci just walks through this performance.
The biggest problem for me is, and maybe I'm stupid, but the Russos didn't seem to nail the analogy for the robots. Do they represent blacks in the civil rights, American Indians, slavery? There is also this line in the movie
Humans are a tire fire in the middle of a lake of piss
Apparently they're fighting robots based on corporate mascots that people made in the 90s, and it's a post apocalypse. As someone who doesn't really watch Netflix, it's funny that I got an ad from a Peanut company more than commercials for the real movie.
In the original as a random reddit comment said "For those wondering, the Electric State,the book, is very different. There is no revolution, it's a road trip with her are a little robot buddy through a decaying US where most of the population is dead or hooked up to VR as a once prosperous and advanced world crumbles around them"
There is a robot revolution, it's mentioned on page 2. It isn't that huge a deal since it's just the backdrop for the rest.
But I only looked at the first 10 pages, see my link elsewhere.
I looked more: it's all about the destruction of civilization through recreation, people being lethally addicted to the VR devices that won the war for us humans. No Mr. Peanut in the book, he makes up several 'mascots' which are just pure genius in design.