It’s been a few years since Hollywood’s rush for young adult dystopian franchises, from The Hunger Games to Divergent to The Maze Runner. Which makes Uglies, a new Netflix adaptation of Scott Westerfeld’s 2005 novel intended to kick off a new trilogy, already feel out of time. The exceedingly derivative film, directed by McG (Netflix’s Babysitter: Killer Queen) clearly tries to evoke its famous precedents, even hiring Divergent screenwriter Vanessa Taylor, along with Jacob Forman and Whit Anderson, for a script that takes broad swipes at the predominant dystopian YA themes: physical and emotional change, staying true to one’s values, remembering who the real enemy is.
Credit to Uglies for this: in the year 2024, plastic surgery and a beauty standard of body modification is a rich and relevant topic for young people. Unfortunately, Uglies renders its lessons in the most awkward, laughably flat and unconvincing way possible. As in The Hunger Games, this cruel post-apocalyptic society is ruled from a garishly colorful capital city surrounded by ruins, the elites physically distinguishable in dress, makeup and physical form from the rest of the human population, though that description is overselling the effectiveness of production design that is mostly CGI fireworks and lights. After parody-level exposition from star Joey King on the oil crisis preceding the apocalypse (such unfortunate pre-crisis souls are called “rusties”), the flower that saved everything (??) and the required “transformation” every citizen goes through at 16, we’re dropped into the boarding school dorm room of King’s Tally Youngblood.
