Laverne Cox arrives at the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards at the Peacock Theater on Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024, in Los Angeles. (Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times/TNS)
Spoilers Ahead !
Netflix recently released “Uglies,” a movie based on a YA Dystopian novel of the same name. “Uglies” stars big names such as Joey King, who plays our leading heroine Tally, as well as Laverne Cox who plays the story’s main antagonist, Cable.
The premise of this movie is a society, fallen into ruin due to overarching conflicts such as climate change and division. To resolve these, a group of researchers invented a flower that somehow solved all the climate issues in the world and a surgery that makes everyone “perfect” but at the cost of their individuality.
The movie makes a point to emphasize that this surgery is the most important part of keeping things in balance. To quote Cable, “Leave people to choose for themselves, and they’ll destroy the world.”
At this point, you can make the guess that “Uglies” is trying to tackle themes such as beauty standards and self acceptance through a dystopian lens, but does it do it effectively?
I don’t think it does.
While watching “Uglies,” I felt entertained but not fully convinced of the intended message.
It feels outdated, like a movie that should have come out in the 2010’s but got scrapped last minute. Compared to other movies in its genre, its lackluster in both acting and storytelling.
The acting isn’t the worst, but I couldn’t get past how jarring it felt, especially in the beginning. The first half is definitely the worst part of the movie.
I found myself wanting to skip ahead and feeling bored throughout the first 30–40 minutes. Many of the scenes were predictable or simply uninteresting.
The pacing was generally messy throughout this movie. I could hardly tell what the timeline was or how much time had passed.
It wasn’t to the point where the audience would be lost, but it was noticeable that the movie could have done better with more runtime.
Something I noticed about YA book to movie adaptations is the dialogue isn’t always well-adapted, an issue that occurs in this movie. The flowery language works well on paper, but feels cringy on screen. I felt irritated listening to the characters talk at times.
It wasn’t all bad though; the intense scenes were the best acting wise. My favorite scene in the movie is when those from the smoke realize Tally has betrayed them. The cast truly shines here, especially Joey King and Brianna Tju, who plays Shay.
The actress who stood out to me throughout this movie is Laverne Cox. As previously mentioned, Cox plays the main antagonist—Cable—the evil doctor controlling everything.
Cox plays a good villain. I wasn’t expecting much from Cable but really enjoyed watching her scenes. I wish she was a little more expressive, but the aloofness does go with the character.
I will say, there is a certain irony in having a transgender actress portray a villain that enforces surgery onto teenagers. Not to imply that this was an intentional choice, but it definitely reminds you of the current political climate.
Returning to the storytelling, I wasn’t the biggest fan of the romance between David (Keith Powers) and Tally. It felt rushed on David’s end.
I could see Tally falling for David due to the circumstances, but I couldn’t see any reason why he fell for her to the point of making nonsensical decisions.
David is supposed to be an intelligent leader of a rebel organization. It makes no sense for him to be “tricked” by Tally or at least to not be overly suspicious of her.
It would have been more effective for their romance and trust to be built up slowly over time and then have her betrayal be found out. They both needed to be fleshed out more.
One of the biggest things I was disappointed about was the lack of exploration of the “Pretties” side of things. I couldn’t fully empathize with the movie’s sentiment as we don’t see much of the darker aspects of being one of the “Pretties.”
The movie attempts to show this through Tally’s best friend, Peris (Chase Stokes), but his scenes fell flat to me.
I would have loved it if Tally got to spend more time with Peris during her initial trip to the city and see how uncanny it truly is. Hearing Peris talk and seeing more of that stark difference between his past and present self would have made his scenes more memorable.
The movie portrays this better with Shay. She spends the majority of the movie as herself, then is forced to become a “Pretty” at the end.
It’s a shocking difference and invokes sympathy as viewers can see an example of the loss of self in pursuit of “perfection.”
Though, considering the ending sets the story up for a sequel, I’m sure we’ll see more of this in another movie.
Despite the lacking parts, I do think it’s a decent movie for its targeted audience. It’s boring at the beginning but picks up in the middle/latter part.
“Uglies” is a hit or miss. It’s the type of movie that you love when you’re young then rewatch in a few years and realize it wasn’t that good.
Considering all of this, I would rate “Uglies” a 5 out of 10. It’s an average, predictable YA dystopian movie. It wasn’t my favorite, but I could see a preteen/young teen loving it.
“Uglies” is currently streaming on Netflix.
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