Uglies Netflix Movie Review: We have seen many film and serial adaptations of young adult fantasy and sci-fi literary sagas in recent decades. Some of these have achieved the global success that was expected, while others have not gone as hoped, so much so that they have quickly fallen into oblivion. To find out what fate Uglies will face, we will have to wait for the publication of the data relating to the number of views obtained on Netflix, where the adaptation of the first of Scott Westerfeld’s novels by Joseph McGinty Nichol, aka McG, landed on September 13, 2024.
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Uglies is a dystopian science fiction film whose marked canonicity and alignment with the already seen prevents it from adding anything new and personal to the young adult sci-fi sagas
But beyond the level of appreciation recorded and finding out how many times the aforementioned content has been enjoyed on the stars and stripes platform, it must be said that we found ourselves in the presence of a dystopian science fiction film whose marked canonicity and alignment with the already seen prevents it from adding anything new and personal to the cause.
Just read the synopsis and see how it was developed to realize how little originality there is in the story told compared to what is currently in circulation in the aforementioned genre, so much so that it generates a series of déjà-vu in the viewer on duty. We are in fact in a future now arid of raw materials and consumed by conflicts (you know what’s new) in which ugliness is banned. Or rather, normality is banned. Ordinary people are defined as uglies (translated: ugly). Ugliness and imperfections, according to the new rules, create hatred and violence, and so the population, upon reaching the age of sixteen, is forced to undergo cosmetic surgery (not without risks), transforming everyone from uglies to pretties.
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The film adaptation trivializes the contents and the strong and contemporary ideas of the literary matrix
Here in Uglies we see assembled elements and situations that through a copy and paste seem to give shape to a narrative and dramaturgical puzzle whose pieces for analogies and similarities bring to mind Hunger Games and Ender’s Game, rather than Maze Runner, Divergent and Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets. Although the publication date of Westerfeld’s novel dates back to 2005, therefore preceding some of the sagas mentioned above, in McG’s work there is an attachment that is too morbid to the matrix that, given the times and precedents, would have instead needed a revision and even a partial detachment that would have allowed the transposition of Uglies to acquire a sense in the current market.
In this way it could have distanced itself from the already produced and found its own independence. In this sense, interesting ideas and themes such as those treated, potentially strong from a dramaturgical point of view, such as the artificial search for beauty, the society devoted to appearance, the frantic search for approval, the continuous reflection of a dangerous and utopian perfection to be pursued and chased, could have guaranteed, if not trivialized and addressed superficially, a significant depth and stratification to the narration and the design of the characters. Which, as you may have guessed, did not happen.
A more practical and less cerebral science fiction, which lowers the level to bring it to a more commercial and generalist stage at the service of a display of CGI and special effects as an end in itself
The American director and screenwriter ends up squandering what the original text has to offer, flattening its contents and diminishing the importance of the arguments raised. All of this is shaped on the basis of different needs and more geared towards mere entertainment. There is ample space for a more practical and less brainy science fiction, which lowers the level to bring it to a more commercial and generalist stage in which the story is transformed into an accessory at the service of a display of CGI and special effects that is an end in itself, which in the end is not even particularly impactful and effective visually.
This makes Uglies a sterile container of emotions into which yet another chapter of a coming-of-age novel is poured, that of a teenager (played in a not-so-exciting way by Joey King) who impatiently awaits the achievement of her sixteenth birthday to cut the finish line of the much-desired “perfection” and then realizes that in a world that was believed to be extinct, an imperfect and real world, there is everything she was looking for.
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Uglies: evaluation and conclusion
McG’s adaptation of the first novel of the young adult sci-fi saga of the same name by Scott Westerfeld does not make the most of the contemporary and potentially interesting content and ideas available in favor of an entertainment product with a canonical narrative and packaging. The display of CGI and VFX to give shape to the artificial and “perfect” world only serves to throw smoke in the eyes of a viewer who once again finds himself having to deal with dynamics and developments that have the unmistakable flavor of reheated soup. Already at the first taste, you can feel a reshuffle of things already seen and heard in other similar operations (above all Hunger Games), put together to create a work capable of riding the wave and satisfying the expectations of the usual frequenters of the genre in question. It leaves a bitter taste in the mouth.
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