Warning: this article will contain spoilers for the movie “Uglies.” 

As the trend of being incapable of originality continues in Hollywood, Netflix released a movie adaptation on Sept. 13 for a novel that came out in 2005: “Uglies” by Scott Westerfeld.

This novel depicts a futuristic dystopian society where everyone is given cosmetic surgery at age 16 in order to become a “Pretty.” Yes, “Pretty” with a capital “P”—proper noun not an adjective. People under the age of 16 who have not received said cosmetic surgery are referred to as “Uglies.” 

We’re going to momentarily ignore the obvious critiques of the story’s entire premise. For now let’s look at the plot and movie as a whole.

The movie follows our main character and heroine Tally Youngblood, played by Joey King. When the movie starts, Tally is an Ugly and just three months shy of her birthday and surgery. Her friend Peris on the other hand, played by Chase Stokes, is just hours away from his surgery.

They make a pact that a month post-operation, Peris will return back to the academy where they both currently reside, as Uglies are segregated from the city where Pretties live.

We’re also going to ignore that these groups are being segregated even though in the opening scene Tally narrates that scientists invented the surgery to end discrimination.

A month goes by and Peris predictably doesn’t show up. After what was supposed to be a touching montage of their childhood flashes by on screen, Tally sneaks out to go find Peris.

For a frame of reference, this montage happens eight minutes into the movie. I have not known these characters long enough to care about their friendship. While King and Stokes are by no means ugly, their performance is not charismatic enough to invoke any emotion in me.

As you might have guessed, when Tally finds Peris he has almost completely forgotten about her. Additionally, he looks much worse after receiving the operation than he did before. He reminds me of Lucky Blue Smith and looks straight from the uncanny valley.

The special effects team in charge of making the actors look pretty seems to have had a budget of two dollars and a dream. The second scene of the movie is Tally standing in front of a robotic mirror and asking it to make her Pretty.

The robot mirror slaps an Instagram filter on her face and calls it a day. I wish I was exaggerating.

Returning to the plot, before any sort of reconciliation can occur, Tally is discovered and a high speed chase scene ensues. When she is nearly caught by the warden, Tally is saved by another girl named Shay, played by Brianne Tju.

Tju deserves her flowers because her performance was easily the most charming and kept me from falling asleep, not that her competition was particularly tough.

Now here is where the story started to lose me and the two friends I watched this movie with. The movie rapidly shifts between a bonding scene of Shay and Tally raiding the kitchen, Tally presenting exposition about the world through a school project and Shay discussing a secret society of people who are Ugly and live in the woods.

These very different scenes go by in a span of no more than 10 minutes. I was left scratching my head wondering what was going on. This is easily the movie’s biggest weakness. Forget the shoddy special effects, the boring acting or the insane plot.

The movie has no idea how to pace itself. 

It gives you a sentimental flashback of two characters you haven’t known long enough to be sentimental about. Long and useless scenes of two characters hoverboarding together with the only conceivable reason being “it’s a futuristic society.” Barely spends any time explaining how the dystopian world functions or who this secret society is.

The rest of the movie is as predictable as the first 20 minutes. Shay and Tally escape to the secret society where Tally forms a romantic relationship with David, played by Keith Powers, the leader of the secret society. Again for no conceivable reason other than two people of the opposite sex can’t breathe the same air in young adult fiction without getting together.

David’s parents are scientists who reveal the big twist. The beauty-optimizing operation is a ploy to lobotomize everyone and make them stupid so the government can control the world.

I bet no one reading this could’ve predicted that. What a convoluted and unpredictable plot.

While not the movie’s biggest weakness, the plot is the most infuriating part of the movie. I personally felt infuriated because this plot has potential. The issue I have with most dystopian literature written to capitalize off “The Hunger Games” craze is their lack of meaning.

Suzanne Collins wrote “The Hunger Games” with the intention of making societal critiques about wealth inequality, class division, government oppression and a multitude of other themes.

Every knockoff that came after it, from Veronica Roth’s “Divergent” series to Joey Graceffa’s “Children of Eden,” had no purpose other than profit. The whole point of a dystopian novel is to take a societal issue, blow it completely out of proportion and use that to make critiques of current society.

Westerfeld wrote “Uglies” with some sort of idea in mind: critiquing societal beauty standards. Today, amidst the rise of editing photos, cosmetic surgeries, botox and filler this movie could have been an incredible and timely work.

Instead, the movie sabotaged itself with outdated character archetypes, bad special effects, flat acting and a plot that feels like it was written by AI.

My only hope is that A24 buys the rights to the franchise from Netflix and retcons this movie out of existence.