Uglies

The uncanny valley isn't just a psychological phenomenon anymore; it’s a business model. Watching Uglies, the long-delayed Netflix adaptation of Scott Westerfeld’s 2005 YA titan, I felt like I was scrolling through a high-budget TikTok filter that refused to turn off. It’s a film that arrives nearly two decades after its source material defined the dystopian "chosen one" trope, and somehow, it feels both incredibly prescient and hopelessly stuck in 2012. I watched this on a Tuesday night while nursing a lukewarm cup of peppermint tea that had a single, defiant cat hair floating in it, and honestly, that cat hair had more texture than most of the digital landscapes on screen.

A Decade Late and a Filter Short

For those who didn't spend their middle school years under the covers with a flashlight, the premise is pure YA gold: in a post-apocalyptic future, everyone is born "Ugly" and undergoes mandatory extreme plastic surgery at sixteen to become "Pretty." Our protagonist, Tally Youngblood (played by a perpetually earnest Joey King), is counting down the days until she can join her best friend Peris (Chase Stokes, doing his best "I’m too handsome for this plot" brooding) in the city of neon lights and eternal parties.

But then she meets Shay (Brianne Tju), a rebel who talks about a hidden community called "The Smoke" where people stay natural. When Shay vanishes, the steely Dr. Cable (Laverne Cox, who looks like she’s having the most fun out of everyone) blackmails Tally into becoming a spy. The central irony, of course, is that Joey King is about as "ugly" as a sunset in the Maldives. The film tries to convince us she’s plain by giving her slightly messy hair and a cargo vest, but the 'ugly' characters are just movie stars who forgot to hydrate for a day. This is a persistent hurdle for the film—it wants to critique our obsession with perfection while being a product of a streaming system that demands its stars look flawless even when they’re sleeping in the dirt.

Hoverboards and High Octane

If there’s one thing director McG knows how to do, it’s move a camera. Having cut his teeth on the neon-drenched chaos of Charlie’s Angels (2000) and more recently the gore-pop fun of The Babysitter, he brings a frantic, music-video energy to the proceedings. The highlight of the film, and arguably the only reason to hit play, is the hoverboard choreography.

There’s a sequence where Tally has to navigate a crumbling bridge that feels like a genuine rush. The boards click and whirr with a tactile sound design that I actually appreciated—they don't just glide; they feel like magnetic surfboards fighting against gravity. The action is fast, perhaps a bit too fast, as the "shaky cam" occasionally masks the fact that the CGI environments look like they were rendered on a PlayStation 4. When Tally finally reaches The Smoke and meets the rugged David (Keith Powers), the film shifts from a sci-fi chase into a wilderness survivalist vibe, but the momentum never quite recovers. The fight scenes are competent but feel sanitized, lacking the visceral weight of something like The Hunger Games. It’s action for the iPad generation: bright, loud, and over before you can lose interest.

The Paradox of the Plain

What’s fascinating about Uglies in 2024 is how it engages with our current "Instagram Face" reality. In 2005, the idea of universal cosmetic surgery felt like a distant, sci-fi nightmare. Today, with filters and filler, it feels like a Tuesday afternoon on Sunset Boulevard. The film tries to lean into this, with Laverne Cox delivering lines about "social harmony through symmetry" that hit home in an era of algorithmic beauty.

However, the script by Vanessa Taylor (The Shape of Water) and Jacob Forman struggles to give the supporting cast much to do. Brianne Tju is a standout, bringing a jagged, desperate energy to Shay that makes her transition into "Pretty" actually tragic. On the flip side, the legendary Charmin Lee is tucked away in a role that feels like it was chopped down in the editing room to make more space for hoverboard stunts.

The film's biggest sin is that it looks like an AI-generated fever dream of a 2012 Zara commercial. The "Pretty" city is so glowy and blurred that it loses all sense of physical space. It’s the ultimate "Streaming Era" aesthetic—designed to be watched on a phone or a laptop where the lack of fine detail won't be as jarring. There’s a soul somewhere in this story about self-acceptance, but it’s buried under layers of digital smoothing and a narrative that feels like it’s checking off boxes rather than telling a story.

Uglies is a classic "middle-of-the-road" streaming release that serves as a pleasant enough distraction for a slow evening, but it fails to leave a lasting mark. It’s a movie that tells you to love your flaws while presenting a world so digitally scrubbed that flaws don't even exist. If you’re a fan of the books, you’ll likely enjoy seeing the hoverboards in action, but for the rest of us, it’s a reminder that some stories stay in the past for a reason. It’s not quite a disaster, but it’s definitely not "pretty."