Uglies

It is centuries into the future. After many global catastrophes, the world has reached a new utopia where everybody gets remade into their perfect selves upon turning 16. 15 year old Tally Youngblood (Joey King) is eager to have her change and a smaller nose.

This is a dumb YA premise. The title is even dumber. I do wonder if there is a better way to do this. The glowy suits are a good start and I like the eyes. The premise should be making people more than pretty. They should be all similar and be bigger and glowier. My best guess is that this is written by some Beverly Hills kids who grew up obsessed with plastic surgery. This could be satire if McG knew what the word means. At least, Joey King is willing to make fun of her nose.

If one ignores the stupid premise, this becomes a run-of-the-mill YA dystopian franchise. It follows a lot of the standard elements. The hoverboard scenes look real bad with early 2000's CGI. I just can't get over the basic premise of plastic surgery saving the world. It says more about Hollywood than anything else.

Man, this movie is such a disappointment. It's so so bad. I hate to be this person, but they deviated so far from the book it's almost its own entity. I understand when they need to change certain things to make it work for the screen, but they completely changed story lines and character arcs. There's almost no noticeable differences between the "uglies" and the "pretties". The pretties just look like they have a smoothing instagram filter on, very basic. It's not even good CGI. They shoehorned things in from later in the series making a convoluted mess. It's obvious they had no intention of making any more than the one movie, which is annoying. Why start something you have no plans of finishing?? After the first 20 minutes of this mess I came to IMDB and found out it was directed by McG and I'm not surprised. The dude hasn't made anything worthwhile in 20 years. What an absolute joke. I hope Netflix loses a bunch of money on this junk. They've become the worst of all the streaming services, just continuously churning out literal garbage while they cancel the only decent shows they have after one season.

It's shocking how much nonsense they can pile up. The dialogues are painful, and the story is hard to watch. I only feel like it deserves a 2/10, not a 1, due to the fact that it's unintentionally funny, and you can't take it seriously.

Even though Netflix films are a constant letdown, you might feel tempted to give this one a chance. The visual effects are okay; it's clear they spent money on them. I just wish they had focused more on the storytelling. The forced plot goes in every direction except the one you wish. It makes you wonder if the actors felt awkward during filming...

I really don't recommend watching this movie-unless you're with a group of friends on edibles, looking for a laugh.

This movie just became available and judging by some of the 'reviews' here many watched it (or didn't) just to leave a negative review.

While it cannot be considered a masterpiece it in fact is a fairly entertaining parody of modern society. The idea that people place an inappropriately high value on "how someone looks." When friends meet at an event or party a common greeting is "You look really good in that outfit." Or "I love your new hairstyle." I suspect being "pretty" or "handsome" helps people get jobs or elected for public office.

Some reviewers point out that the actors, including Joey King, aren't really ugly. That misses the point, in this society they are considered ugly because they are ordinary. When we see those who have turned 16 and undergone their transition, their beauty is about what you get when someone has a glamor makeup session. Or the usual makeup movie stars get for the role they are playing.

But that is only part of it, they also are brainwashed to believing that "Free thinking is a cancer" and conforming will make everyone happier. (Shades of 'Pleasantville.')

So Joey King plays 'Squint", she is about to turn 16, her mantra is "I want to be pretty." But there is a rogue world outside her city where rebels are living the old way, children with their parents, growing their own real food. And the movie ultimately gets the 'Rusties" as they are called pited against the establishment.

Movies like this are made to entertain and my wife and I were entertained, watching at home, streaming. As the movie went she said she thought maybe she had read the books some years past and later found out she did. They are considered 'Young Adult' books and that fits with the themes here.

You will not run into any surprises in this dystopian teen soap opera of a film. It contains a lot of tired tropes and cliched sci-fi scenarios, and doesn't really offer a new spin on anything. The plot is ripped straight out of the 1976 classic sci-fi film (and the novel that proceeded it) Logan's Run. Meanwhile, the main conceit of the film is straight out of a Twilight Zone episode: What would you do to fit in with the "pretty" crowd?

Of course, everyone is pretty in this world already, as the cast consists entirely of fresh-faced, fit young adults -- no one is overweight, disabled, or disfigured. The only blemish in the entire CGI-filled world is a scar on the hand. (The horror!) All of this would be forgivable if the acting and writing were on par with, say, The Hunger Games -- another YA series with a similar dystopian feel. Alas, that is not the case, as dramatic lines like, "Yup, I'm David." are the best that the film has to offer.

Plus, the unsatisfying conclusion seems to exist only to set up a sequel -- ugh! Netflix has a very mixed bag lately when it comes to sci-fi, the most underserved genre on the streaming service. On the one hand, they gave us the amazing first season of Three-Body Problem and Adam Sandler's underappreciated masterpiece, Spaceman. On the other hand, they waste a lot of time and money making hot garbage like this film or Zack Snyder's poorly conceived two-part Rebel Moon.

Netflix, not all sci-fi has to be super-cerebral, but it's definitely not about CGI and "pretty" characters. At its core, sci-fi exists to hold aa mirror up to us, exploring morality by posing the question of what humans would do in extraordinary circumstances. By taking the characters out of the everyday, it allows us to more closely examine what it truly means, at its core, to be human. But this movie falls far short of that goal, offering us only a generic story that we've seen far too often already. So, please, Netflix, do not greenlight the sequel to this movie.