Netflix’s YA Adaptation Feels Instantly Dated

Even in a world where unrealistic photo filters have messed with our heads, Joey King (“A Family Affair”) wouldn’t be considered anything less than pretty with her lagoon-blue eyes and youthful complexion. But in the realm of “Uglies,” director McG’s (“Charlie’s Angels”) halfhearted screen adaptation of Scott Westerfeld’s 2005 young-adult novel, her character Tally Youngblood’s objective attractiveness is irrelevant. That’s because being pretty means something entirely different in the reality that she lives, one that exists several hundred years after the demise of our own.

In that unnamed future, everyone at the age of 16 mandatorily goes through a surgical procedure to become their best-looking selves—a coming-of-age day as spiritual as getting one’s period or being celebrated at a teenage-centric religious custom. Until then, you’re stuck in an educational institution with the rest of “the uglies.”

Thanks to similar examples of the dystopian formula — think Michael Bay’s “The Island” or the “Divergent” series ­— audiences can read the writing on the wall well before “Uglies” reveals its twist. Of course, that beauty transformation is driven by something Orwellian, rather than the betterment of society. But teens like Tally have been fed lies for generations. They believe that every deeply-rooted system of discrimination had been caused by grudges between those who were born with good looks and those cursed with less-than-ideal facades. That injustice, coupled with an over-reliance on fossil fuels, caused the planet’s decline. But in the dystopian future of “Uglies,” that’s all a thing of the past. Everyone is equally pretty now, and science has prevailed to invent a plant-based resource to meet all our survival needs.

At the start, King sums up all these specifics in a factual voiceover with little feeling, like she’s reading bullet points from a textbook. That dutiful, emotionless disposition sadly drives much of “Uglies,” which unfolds through a paint-by-numbers monotony despite the high-stakes nature of the story. Still, writers Jacob Forman, Vanessa Taylor and Whit Anderson manage to establish Tally’s world and personality with some intrigue, giving us a glimpse into her sweet friendship with Peris (Chase Stokes). He calls Tally by the nickname Squint, an amicable wink to her unique looks. She calls him Nose, because, well, he’s blessed with a rather distinct one.

But their bonds are soon to be put to test, with Nose’s surgery scheduled to take place two months before Squint’s. Because they can’t bear the thought of being apart that long, the two make a pledge to meet by the bridge that connects the uglies to the colorful city where the pretties live. When the now-pretty Peris doesn’t show up, Tally decides to flee the premises one night to figure out what happened. Tally is resourceful in a way you’d expect the well-worn chosen-one trope to be. She escapes undetected, blending in with the pretties in search of Peris.

The much fabled city we don’t see until then is visually realized, like the rest of the production, with an all-too-familiar video game-like appearance. All these generic-looking, CGI-heavy psychedelic environs have been seen before in other (better) sci-fi movies and picture books. As for the pretties themselves, freakish beings with smooth skins, high cheekbones and golden eyes, the VFX doesn’t really give us anything more inventive than people who collectively look like an airbrushed Instagram feed.

The twist itself isn’t all that twisty, either. Once Tally finally finds Peris, something is expectedly off, as if someone modified his brain and personality. Our suspicions get confirmed with the introduction of another key character, Brianne Tju’s spirited Shay, who has no intentions to undergo the surgery. Instead, Shay reveals that she’d join the mysterious David (Keith Powers) and his colony at “The Smoke,” a faraway location reminiscent of what communal living used to be back in the days of “the rusties” (that would be us present-day viewers). In charge of the uglies’ transformation, Dr. Cable (a severe and unconvincing Laverne Cox) talks Tally into joining Shay and playing double-agent to ultimately destroy The Smoke.

The whole shtick about the importance of “inner beauty” is already so predictable that it becomes downright laughable when Tally learns her lesson and superfluously spells out, “I didn’t know the cost of being pretty was your mind” to the clan she regretfully betrays. And their eventual joining of forces against Dr. Cable yields nothing more than a tedious final act where a battle between the good and the evil emerges with little excitement. (It also doesn’t help that the movie never really explains Dr. Cable’s endgame, outside of her generic need for control.) The ending winks at a sequel (there are additional books in the Westerfeld series), but it’s hard to leave “Uglies” with a desire for a franchise when the movie doesn’t say anything all that meaningful.

While the YA genre can be very capable of unearthing outsized desires and rebellions in all of us, the problem here is the source material itself. Or rather, the timing of its screen adaptation. Perhaps in 2005, when popular social media sites were at their infancy, using fake beauty projections of young people as the basis of a dystopian tale was a more novel idea. These days though, it feels immediately obsolete, as soon as Tally looks in the mirror early on and imagines what her own enhanced beauty would feel like. “Uglies” never recovers from there.