The Electric State (2025)
Directed by Joe Russo
Partly — The Electric State is somewhat woke, scoring 44 out of 100 on our wokeness meter.
An orphaned teenager, a smuggler with a wisecracking robot sidekick, and a landscape of rusted Americana: The Electric State arrives with a reported $320 million price tag and the somber bearing of a film that believes it has something to say.
Consciousness Markers
Sentre CEO Ethan Skate is the villain who exploits a comatose child's consciousness to power his drone empire, and the film explicitly blames 'corporate greed' for the world's devastation — a clear eat-the-rich indictment.
The film ends with Michelle broadcasting a moralizing address to the world about corporate exploitation and inviting people to live in peace, and critics noted its 'preachy' robot-rights commentary throughout.
The ensemble is notably diverse, with Ke Huy Quan in a dual role, plus Giancarlo Esposito, Anthony Mackie, and Colman Domingo in the voice cast, though the two leads are white and the diversity reads as standard blockbuster assembly rather than a pointed statement.
The robots function as a transparent civil-rights allegory, campaigning for equal rights against human prejudice, which critics flagged as 'preachy commentary on prejudice' — a metaphor for marginalized groups rather than a direct engagement with race.
Michelle is a teenage girl who drives the entire quest and ultimately rescues her brother, giving her genuine agency, but the film offers no explicit feminist messaging or critique of patriarchy.
The post-war Exclusion Zone and technological ruins provide a devastated landscape, but the desolation stems from human-robot warfare and corporate tech, not climate change as a theme.
No LGBTQ+ characters, relationships, or themes appear anywhere in the film.
No body-positivity themes or messaging are present.
Christopher is described as a 'child prodigy' and Michelle refuses Neurocaster tech, but neither is framed through a neurodivergence lens.
The alternate 1990s setting is speculative fiction worldbuilding, not a revisionist reframing of real historical events.
Why it received this score
An orphaned teenager, a smuggler with a wisecracking robot sidekick, and a landscape of rusted Americana: The Electric State arrives with a reported $320 million price tag and the somber bearing of a film that believes it has something to say. The setting is an alternate 1990s in which humanity won a war against its own machines, banished the survivors to an Exclusion Zone, and then quietly outsourced its existence to drone technology. The robots, we are told at length, only wanted equal rights. Critics called this a preachy commentary on prejudice, and they were not wrong. The allegory is worn on the outside of the chassis, visible from the concession stand.
The villain is a technology chief executive, Ethan Skate, who has been powering his drone empire with the captive consciousness of a comatose child. The film is unambiguous about where the blame lies: corporate greed, named aloud in the closing narration. This is the most committed position the movie takes, and it takes it with the subtlety of a dropped anvil. Michelle, our teenage protagonist, drives the entire quest and ultimately frees her brother by disconnecting him, which is real agency, though the film never bothers to say anything about it. The voice cast is diverse in the manner of a studio assembling a poster, which is to say competently and without a thesis.
Then comes the ending, in which Michelle broadcasts a moralizing address to the world and invites the peaceful to move into the ruins. A film this expensive should not end like a public service announcement, yet here we are. There is no LGBTQ content, no body-positive messaging, no neurodivergent framing, no climate reckoning, and no revisionist history. Just a junkyard, a resurrected robot, and the faint suggestion of a sequel nobody requested.
Analysis generated by our Consciousness Algorithm
Synopsis
An orphaned teen hits the road with a mysterious robot to find her long-lost brother, teaming up with a smuggler and his wisecracking sidekick.
Questions about The Electric State
Is The Electric State woke?
Partly — The Electric State is somewhat woke, scoring 44 out of 100 on our wokeness meter. That earns it a verdict of Woke-Adjacent.
What makes The Electric State woke?
4 of the 10 markers register at 30 or above, led by Eat the Rich (65), Lecture Energy (45) and Racial Consciousness (40). On Eat the Rich: Sentre CEO Ethan Skate is the villain who exploits a comatose child's consciousness to power his drone empire, and the film explicitly blames 'corporate greed' for the world's devastation — a clear eat-the-rich indictment.
How does The Electric State compare to other 2025 movies?
It ranks #44 of the 217 films from 2025 we've scored; their average is 26. The wokest is STRAW (92).
How is the Woke Score calculated?
An AI-assisted process researches the film and its reception, scores it 0–100 on ten markers, then combines those into one 0–100 Woke Score. It measures a specific set of 2020s cultural themes, not film quality.