Uglies: Review
In 2005, Uglies arrived on the YA scene before dystopian fever gripped the world. Fast forward to 2024, and after nearly two decades of development hell, Netflix has finally slapped together a movie adaptation. Unfortunately, it’s as pretty as a pile of wet cardboard. If you’re hoping for a gripping return to the glory days of teen dystopia, think again. What you’re actually getting is a half-baked mess that feels like it’s ten years too late, and even back then, it wouldn’t have been worth the wait.
Uglies follows Tally Youngblood (Joey King), a teen in a future society where everyone gets a mandatory beauty makeover at 16 to become a "Pretty"—and, surprise, everything’s great after that! Or is it? Spoiler alert: it’s not. Tally’s journey of self-discovery is triggered when her friend Peris (Chase Stokes) emerges from the procedure looking like a stock photo model with zero personality. Cue the existential crisis, as Tally starts questioning the whole Pretty system. Enter Dr. Cable (Laverne Cox), who looks like she walked straight out of a fashion magazine but turns out to be the mastermind behind a creepy surgical scheme that keeps society in check.
Now, you might think this sounds like a setup for an interesting movie. You’d be wrong. Director McG (yes, the guy who made Charlie's Angels and All Star by Smash Mouth look like high art in comparison) slaps together a glossy, visually overcooked trainwreck. The dialogue is cringe-worthy, the world-building is as deep as a kiddie pool, and the CGI is straight out of a late-2000s video game cutscene. Even the emotional beats land with all the grace of a belly flop.
The lines? Oh, they’re bad. Like “Mirror, make me Pretty” bad. You could write a dystopia drinking game with how many cringe-inducing moments there are. Not to mention, every tired trope from the genre’s 2010s heyday is here, right down to the obligatory moody cover of The Postal Service’s "Such Great Heights" (because what screams dystopia more than nostalgia for indie music, right?). It’s as if they dug up the YA dystopia playbook and followed it to the letter without bothering to make anything remotely fresh.
Then there’s the whole "Pretty" transformation, which in the novel was left to the reader’s imagination. But here? It’s basically a glorified Instagram filter slapped on everyone’s face. It’s supposed to be life-changing, but honestly, it’s more yawn-inducing than jaw-dropping. You can almost hear the collective shrug from the audience.
The real kicker, though, is Laverne Cox as Dr. Cable, the villain orchestrating the entire dystopian circus. On paper, this could’ve been a great role, but in practice, it’s a whole different story. Watching a trans woman play the head of a mind-control surgery cult feels tone-deaf at best and cringe-worthy at worst. It’s a casting decision that’ll have you scratching your head in disbelief, and not in a good way.
Once Tally escapes the city to join the rebels (because of course there are rebels), things somehow get worse. The grand reveal that the Pretty procedure isn’t just cosmetic but also scrambles your brain should be a chilling moment. Instead, it’s handled with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. The Smoke, the rebel group living off the grid, feels like it was pulled out of the stock "dystopian resistance group" bin. There’s nothing surprising, thrilling, or even remotely interesting about them.
All in all, Uglies feels like a relic from a time when YA dystopian movies were everywhere, and even then, it wouldn’t have made the cut. It’s predictable, shallow, and drags its way to an ending that somehow still sets up a sequel. If you’re hoping for nostalgia, you’ll get it—but not the good kind. It’s the kind that reminds you of just how tired this genre became, and why most of us moved on a decade ago. If Uglies teaches us anything, it’s that some stories are better left on the shelf.