For a young-adult story, the concept of Uglies is certainly intriguing, if somewhat familiar: in a post-scarcity dystopian future, everyone is considered an “ugly,” and the powers-that-be decide that if they surgically make everyone a “pretty,” a great deal of the earth’s conflicts will be erased.
It turns out that this utopian plan works, and as a result, everybody gets cosmetically altered at 16 years old to join the rest of idealized society (the other books in author Scott Westerfeld’s series are Pretties, Specials, and Extras, in case you were wondering). We’re introduced to this future-world through Tally Youngblood (Joey King) and her best friend Peris (Chase Stokes), who live in pre-surgery dorms and attend school together, waiting for the day they are called up for their extreme transformation. They even have an agreement that they will stay close even if one of them goes first, and sure enough, Peris is selected a few months earlier than Tally—and she never hears from him again.
But because she’s made friends with a rebellious young woman named Shay (Brianne Tju) and sneaked out of the dorms after curfew, Tally is held back until she can give those in charge (led by one Dr. Cable, played with perhaps a little too much flair by Laverne Cox) some idea of where a rebel group known as the Smoke is hiding. Tally doesn’t actually know, but she’s so desperate to become a pretty and join Peris that she agrees to try and find the Smoke and turn over their location.
Directed by McG (who helmed both Charlie’s Angels movies, among many an action-oriented works), Uglies feels like it’s plucked parts from other YA dystopian works—and not always the best parts. You'll find scraps of The Hunger Games, Divergent, The Maze Runner, The Host, The Giver, and many other series or would-be series. From the way the characters are forced to over-explain the world they live in so the audience can catch up to the way that there’s always a Chosen One who’s going to keep the lowly types from losing faith and lead them to persevere, these movies all seem to deliver the same messages about resisting conformity, expressing your true self and learning how to use old-school weapons to fight high-tech, maximum-destruction ones.
There’s very little in this film that doesn’t remind you of something else, and as much as I enjoy King’s work as an actor (and this has been a passion project since she was close to her character’s age; she’s 25 now), nothing can really save this from getting mixed up in my brain with a dozen other, similar movies. And the film ends on a cliffhanger that all but promises more to come, which I don’t think is a foregone conclusion. In addition, the messages about the healing power of good looks and pushing back against that feels wildly dated, by maybe 10 years (the first book was released almost 20 years ago).
When the action shifts from the shimmering cities of the pretties to the woods and crumbling remains of the old society, things get even more monotonous when Tally starts to fall for the Smoke’s leader, David (Keith Powers), who ends up persuading Tally that there’s something more to these surgeries than anyone realizes. It’s also pretty clear that Tally’s friend Shay has a big crush on her, but it’s never addressed directly, making the film’s progressive way of thinking seem pretty timid. We’re long overdue for a new wave of these kind of YA films with perhaps more aggressive and unique messages, but Uglies feels like a throwback to something that isn’t even that old. I’m not sure I had any expectations going into this one, but somehow I still left feeling disappointed.
The film is now streaming on Netflix.
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