UGLIES (2024)
A world in which a compulsory operation wipes out physical differences and makes everyone pretty.

A world in which a compulsory operation wipes out physical differences and makes everyone pretty.
Did we need yet another young adult dystopian science fiction movie adaptation? Netflix certainly thinks so with its latest original feature film offering, Uglies. Adapted from Scott Westerfield’s first 2005 dystopian novel in a four-part series, it’s set in a world 300 years in the future. Society has collapsed after exhausting the Earth’s natural resources, but scientists have managed to create a genetically modified orchid which acts as a new, unlimited energy source, saving humanity in the process. The new world order eliminates inequalities between humans using the great equaliser of beauty (read: forced conformity) via comprehensive plastic surgery. The world is hence separated between new castes of Uglies and Pretties, and rumoured resistance exists in a place called The Smoke.
Tally Youngblood (Joey King) is a rebellious 15-year-old whose worst problem is that her best friend and will-they-won’t-they love interest Peris (Chase Stokes) is three whole months older than her. The film opens on the night before Peris’ 16th birthday, when he’s to become a Pretty, finally leaving Tally behind. Then, after Peris is gone, she befriends an Ugly classmate named Shay (Brianne Tju), and they bond over their shared birthday and their love of sneaking around. Shay confides in Tally that she has no intention of going through with the procedure; instead, she plans to join The Smoke and follow its mysterious leader David (Keith Powers). So, she invites Tally to join her, and when she refuses, leaves her coded instructions should she change her mind.
Unfortunately, the Pretties are onto them. Tally’s prevented from receiving her procedure and is instead manipulated and coerced by the sinister Dr Cable (Laverne Cox), who’s in charge of said procedures, into following Shay’s instructions to lead the Pretties to The Smoke. At first, Tally’s looking for evidence that The Smoke is a dangerous organisation like she’s been led to believe by Dr Cable, while working to gain David’s trust. Romance blooms between the two, leading David to introduce Tally to his parents Az (Jay DeVon Johnson) and Maddy (Charmin Lee), who let her in on the Pretties’ sinister secrets. What follows is standard action fare full of fast-paced heroics, sprinkled with the high stakes of betrayal and redemption as well as the obligatory love triangle between Tally, Peris and David. At its heart, Uglies tries to tackle beauty standards, societal conformity, and authoritarian regimes.
Hiring director McG (Charlie’s Angels) and screenwriter Vanessa Taylor (Divergent) to adapt the classic YA dystopian novel sounds like a home run on paper. The timing and execution, however, are far from success. With plenty of sci-fi YA movie adaptations having come and gone in the 2010s, it’s hard to justify adding to the well-exploited genre, especially if one doesn’t have anything new to say. Unfortunately, Westerfeld’s story might have been a classic when it was first published, but the material now feels dated. It would have been up to Netflix’s team to update the material so it was relevant to present-day young adults, who have grown up with social media and are intimately acquainted with beauty filters and the like, at the risk of disappointing some fans of the novels. It feels like a missed opportunity to say something new about the topics at hand.
Uglies also suffers from a short run time. While Netflix advertises it as being a bit over 100 minutes long, the long credits (due to the numerous dubs) shorten that considerably. While not every movie is worth going over the two-hour mark, the short run time is a disservice to the story overall, and the screenwriters don’t use their time efficiently. Why spend five precious minutes in a soulless exposition-heavy voice-over monologue as the film’s introduction when, not 10 minutes later, we see Tally delivering the same exposition as part of a class presentation? Not to mention how boring the intro voice-over is. The rest of the story feels rushed, particularly after Tally goes off on her trek to The Smoke. The movie spends, again, precious minutes in an adventure montage of her travels instead of using them to spend more time developing the characters and their relationships, especially in the third act. Uglies feels like it’s trying to follow a recipe (and stick to its original material too closely) rather than be its own movie.
Another problem with Uglies is the VFX, which is heavy-handed and sometimes downright ridiculous. Some sequences look more like good video game graphics than believable humans pulling incredible stunts (like riding a roller coaster ruin on a hoverboard or jumping off buildings in bungee vests). Visually, Netflix tries to deliver on both sides of the dystopian coin, with the dazzling world of the Pretties and the grit of The Smoke. Alas, its usual clean images lack personality: the Pretties’ world is an immature teen’s vision of what Instagram influencers’ parties could look like if glam filters were real (a discount Capitol, if you will), and the resistance is an underwhelming village in a drab forest. The result is not exciting in the slightest, and again, makes for a boring film.
As for the cast, Joey King is slowly but surely ageing out of her baby face, and barely passes as a 15-year-old, and that’s to say nothing of her costars, with Stokes and Powers both being in their thirties. Nevertheless, King is equal to her talent, and her rendition of Tally as the naive but strong heroine is believable, and Stokes knocks it out of the park as Peris. On the other hand, the character David is not as developed as he should be as the supposed leader of The Smoke, and it’s unclear why a young adult (his age is never revealed) would be the leader of a resistance movement. Moreover, his status as such is more than a bit concerning considering the intimate relationship he starts developing with the barely-16 Tally.
Speaking of whom, the love triangle established between Tally, Peris, and David feels forced, even if it’s a common trope by now for this genre. The lack of chemistry between Tally and David, and how rushed their arc is, are to blame. Tally has much more chemistry with Peris or even with Shay at times. As for the cold, villainous Dr Cable, Laverne Cox delivers a good performance, but her casting raises concerns. Why cast a prominent trans actress in the role of a brutal baddie who is forcing teenagers to have life-and-mind-altering surgeries?
Overall, Uglies is a middling film with nothing much to say. Social media’s already ‘yassified’ us all, and the issues surrounding societal beauty standards and self-acceptance in the age of beauty filters are nothing new. We understand the price to pay for beauty, whether it be perceived or real, the need to see beyond the Instagram filters and plastic surgeries, as well as the importance of pushing back against oppressive systems, from the countless other, and better, films and series that have come before. Unfortunately, Uglies is too little, too late. It’s a shame since my young adult self would have been thrilled to watch this film a decade ago.
USA | 2024 | 102 MINUTES | 2.35:1 | COLOUR | ENGLISH
director: McG.
writers: Jacob Forman, Vanessa Taylor & Whit Anderson (based on the novel by Scott Westerfield).
starring: Joey King, Keith Powers, Chase Stokes, Brianne Tju, Jan Luis Castellanos, Charmie Lee & Laverne Cox.