On Sept. 13, the movie “Uglies” was released on Netflix, quickly making its way to the movie top 10 chart. Even though this film rose to such high ranks on the platform, it missed the mark with fans and myself.
The film follows a girl named Tally (played by Joey King) and her journey through this dystopian world. In this world, when you turn 16 you become “pretty.” “Pretties” have a life of luxury and the rest of the population are called “Uglies.” Tally goes on a journey to find her missing friend and uncover some mysteries in the futuristic world.
I don’t really know where to begin with this film. To say that it didn’t meet my expectations wouldn’t be entirely true, because I went into the movie knowing the Rotten Tomatoes score was low, coming in at 16%. Some even call “Uglies” the worst movie Netflix has ever produced, and I think I’d agree with them.
The first thing I noticed was how poor the green screen and visual effects were. I know the scene is set in a dystopian world, but I thought Netflix could do better. Everything looked so incredibly fake that I had a hard time focusing on much else.
Going into the movie, I didn’t know anything about the storyline the audience was supposed to follow. The same can be said for most movies I watch. I don’t think you should have to have context when going into a movie for the first time (besides sequels). For “Uglies” however, I had a hard time keeping up with everything going on.
It felt to me like as soon as I started to follow and keep up with the story, another subplot would be added or more characters would be introduced. This made my movie watching experience terrible and I ended up getting frustrated or not caring about anything happening on the screen.
Because of the plot bouncing around so much, I couldn’t connect with any of the characters. I didn’t care if they got hurt or if they were sad. I spent my time trying to wrap my head around all the events taking place.
Without giving anything away, there was a romance that occurred between two characters that felt very forced. I didn’t see any connection with either of them, and I was awkward at times watching their so-called “connection” happen. I am still considering if this was due to the bad acting, poor script writing, inconsistent plot line, or a mixture of all three.
Something that really bothered me while watching this film was that the main character kept getting called “ugly” every five minutes. Even though this is supposed to represent a world plagued by nothing but excessive beauty standards, I was not sure how to feel about myself watching this actress continually getting called ugly.
Phrases like “you’ll get it when you’re pretty” kept coming up and it got so frustrating and repetitive that I had to fight not to turn off the movie all together.
The film ends on a cliffhanger, similar to the book it was adapted from. This leaves the door wide open for there to be a sequel. Netflix has yet to announce if anything is in the works, but you have to wonder if they are seeing the feedback about the movie and deciding to move on and cut their losses.
Coming from someone who hates being left out to dry, I know I wouldn’t watch a sequel. Do yourself a favor, and not waste your time on this film.