Uglies (2024) Review!!

Synopsis – A world in which a compulsory operation wipes out physical differences and makes everyone pretty.

My Take – Indeed, it’s been a few years since Hollywood’s rush and obsession for YA dystopian franchises, like The Hunger Games, Divergent, The Maze Runner and others ended.

Something that makes this adaptation of Scott Westerfeld’s 2005 novel, which clearly intended to kick off a new series, already feel out of time. As right from its first frame the Netflix release screams: “A little too late”.

To make matters even worse, the exceedingly derivative film, directed by McG (Terminator: Salvation, Babysitter: Killer Queen) clearly tries to evoke its famous predecessors, even hiring Divergent screenwriter Vanessa Taylor, along with Jacob Forman and Whit Anderson, for a script that takes broad swipes at the predominant dystopian YA themes: staying true to one’s values and remembering who the real enemy is.

Only if the film hadn’t rendered its lessons in the most weak, flat and unconvincing way possible. With little to contribute to its headline thesis and sloppy world building, the film struggles to deliver both entertainment and engagement.

Sure, the themes presented here might have been passable ten years ago, but the whole narrative feels so out of touch in current time.

Set in a world that has eliminated the divisions of class, creed, race, and country via a great equalizer: beauty. And on one’s 16th birthday, they receive a life-changing procedure to make them physically perfect: longer limbs, brighter eyes, and zero flaws. Those 15 and below are members of the uglies, who live on the outskirts of the golden towering city of pretties in brutalist gray compounds.

The story follows Tally (Joey King) who is a few months behind the birthday of her best friend, Peris (Chase Stokes). As he prepares for his procedure, they make a pact to stay in touch in the months until they can reunite. But when he goes silent, she infiltrates the city to find him. Now indifferent, apathetic, and demeaning to her as an “ugly,” her procedure can’t come soon enough.

In the meantime, Tally befriends Shay (Brianne Tju), a fellow ugly who shares her birthday. They pass the time riding hover boards and secretly reading Thoreau’s Walden. Yet, as the date approaches, Shay confides that she has no intention of becoming pretty. Instead, she plans to live authentically, running away to “The Smoke” to join a fringe group of outlaws led by the elusive David (Keith Powers).

When Shay misses her procedure date, Tally’s is postponed by Dr. Cable (Laverne Cox), a government figure who, knowing of their friendship, uses Tally’s transformation as collateral.

Only after finding Shay and bringing her back to the city will Tally be allowed to be pretty. Yet as she encounters the world of The Smoke and meets the mysterious David, Tally’s worldview gets thrown into question as she begins to wonder if the straightforward world of uglies and pretties is more sinister than she believed.

The biggest problem with the film isn’t necessarily that it’s a bad adaptation; it’s just an adaptation that feels extremely dated. The idea that, in the future, people are brainwashed to be complacent is a pretty generic sci-fi story. But the issue isn’t the generic ideas or the extremely predictable chain of events, it’s the way everything is executed.

With the film’s pacing sprinting from set piece to exposition dump and back again. There’s simply no room to breathe within the world director McG is trying to create. Even some of the characters’ relationships are more interesting than others. Shay and Tally’s friendship, born out of sneaking away from their dorms together, is compelling.

But Tally and David’s romance feels awkward and almost like a genre obligation. There is no evolution of story and no time invested in which we truly accompany the characters on their journey. There is a deeper thread present, one that could have taken groundwork from the 2005 novel as a base, and used it to actually say something interesting about beauty standards.

Alas, the script don’t engage in anything deeper than the surface level of the original story, and director McG makes no interesting choices in bringing it to the screen. It doesn’t help that despite being a science fiction adventure the visual effects range from below average to laughable. The ending winks at a sequel (as there are additional books in the series), yet it’s hard to leave the film with a desire for a franchise when it doesn’t leave a lasting impact.

Performances wise, Joey King makes for a likable screen presence and brings some much-needed humanness to the proceedings. Laverne Cox seems to be going full camp.

Chase Stokes and Keith Powers make for generic male leads. Brianne Tju is the only one who comes out unscathed as the most compelling character with an emotive connection to the proceedings. On the whole, ‘Uglies’ is just another a run-of-the-mill YA dystopian feature that is mostly dull and predictable.