Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Uglies’ on Netflix, a YA Dystopian Saga That Burdens Joey King With Rote Genre Tropes

I thought the YA- dystopian genre was dead, but I stand corrected, maybe – Uglies (now streaming on Netflix) adapts the first of a series of mid-2000s novels by Scott Westerfeld , who created a future-set reality where all citizens, deemed “Uglies,” undergo an operation to make them “Pretties,” and therefore perfect aesthetically and in health. Of course, the concept is more complicated than that. All dystopias inevitably are. But that’s the gist of it, and the person at the center of this story is Tally Youngblood, nickname Squint, because she theoretically has squinty eyes, although I had to squint a little myself to believe that the actor playing her, Joey King, actually possesses that trait. But that’s just one miniscule gripe about this movie, which has bigger problems than that.

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The Gist: STAND BY FOR EXPOSITION DUMP. Squint – no, that name is far too annoying, so let’s call her Tally. Anyway, Tally, in voiceover, gives us a big steaming pile of stultifying context. Great way to start a movie! I’ll put it in my own words so it’s more interesting: Hundreds of years in the future, a bunch of people who are clearly assholes rule the joint. The movie doesn’t want us to know that they’re assholes yet, but it’s blatantly obvious, since they’re all beautiful specimens who look like Bratz dolls all glammed up for a night out clubbing. And they look like this all the time! They’re called Pretties. They have incredibly gelled hair, gleaming eyes and exquisite butts, and the gleaming city they live in has constant fireworks exploding above it. Party all the time! What a perfect utopia! And the Pretties absolutely DON’T look like they’ve endured lobotomies! NOT AT ALL.

On the outskirts of the city is a gray cement building where the Uglies live. The Uglies are all teenagers who haven’t had the surgery to make them Pretties yet. They wear drab gray clothes and live in concrete boxes and eat glurpy foodstuff out of pouches. Tally is an Ugly, and so is her bestie Peris (Chase Stokes, the lead of Netflix’s Outer Banks ). She squints and he has a distinctive nose so they call each other Squint and Nose. So cute. They’re 16 years old, and all glassy and optimistic about their pending operations, talking about how she’ll choose to have piercing gold eyes and all that. As we watch Squint and Nose go to “metamorphosis class” and whatever, it’s increasingly obvious that they live in a police state, and are brainwashed to believe that turning the citizenry into Pretties “eliminates discrimination” and renders everyone equal. As I noted before, this is all blatantly obvious to us, but these characters haven’t figured it out yet. Brainwashed folk, as ever, aren’t aware that they’re brainwashed. It takes them a minute. Please be patient.

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So Peris goes off to get Prettied, and Tally befriends Shey (Brianne Tju), aka “Skinny,” who teaches her new pal how to do totally rad tricks on a hoverboard. Shey also is so bold as to not quite buy the mainstream beliefs. She has an actual book (Thoreau, if you must know), and lets Tally read it. Shey also has such gigantic cojones, she says things ike “symmetry is overrated” and “I think age lines are cool!” She’s aware of a rebel faction led by a total hunk named David (Keith Powers), who lives out in the woods in a place dubbed The Smoke, and she R-U-N-N-O-F-Ts to join them. Meanwhile, Tally’s connection to Shey the Defector lands her a meeting with the ruler of the Pretties, Dr. Cable (Laverne Cox), who recruits Tally to pose as a rebel and infiltrate The Smoke and report back so David and co. can be squashed. Tally agrees, but once she realizes how cool and NATURAL life is in The Smoke – and also how hawt David is – she’s torn. Her whole life, she believed that becoming a Pretty is what she needed and wanted to do. But maybe she doesn’t want that anymore? What side will she pick? NO SPOILERS!

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: The Divergent series was the nadir of this genre. Am I saying Uglies reminds me of Divergent ? Well, I’m not not saying that.

Performance Worth Watching: I’ll just say this: I weep for 25-year-old Joey King playing 16-year-old Squint and being asked to do ubercorny gee-whiz teen-movie crapola.

Memorable Dialogue: Uglies is chock full of dialogue filled with wretched declarations like this: “No one dives out of a helicopter into a fiery hell unless they believe in something bigger than themselves!” and “This is the brain we’re talking about – it’s complicated!” and “Nose and Squint – forever!” My Uglies nickname while listening to this junk? Cringe.

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: Uglies is a miserable tryhard Poochie movie engineered to fit, and never ever waver from, the YA-dystopia genre. It’s embarrassingly competent, dull and predictable. If you enjoy stepping on every telegraphed plot point before it happens, then by all means, knock yourself out. Do you think Tally is a Chosen One figure? Is the world of the Pretties destined to fall, if not here, then in a future chapter (that, considering how blah this one is, hopefully won’t exist)? Is it not clear two minutes into the film that it’s going to trot out dusty, moth-eaten thematic tropes about how the stuff on the inside of people is what’s truly beautiful? Didn’t Hollywood cease its Hunger Games copycat-ism years ago? Answers, in order: Yes, yes, yes and obviously, disappointingly not.

Did I mention the film is directed by McG? He’s been cranking out generic junk for Netflix for several years now, and Uglies might be his blandest slab of prefab entertainment product yet: Chintzy greenscreen/CG work, a plot pitting the egos (in ridiculous glitzy costumes) vs. the humbles (in equally ridiculous cable-knit sweaters), interludes backed by shitty pop songs, forgettable action sequences, an earnest-but-conflicted protagonist, plot developments that defy logic, and all that. I feel like I’ve seen this story two dozen times already, and this movie makes it feel like three dozen. Enough already.

Our Call: SKIP IT. Uglies needs to go back to “metamorphosis class” and learn how to metamorphose into something more original.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

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