journal features

movie review - Uglies

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Kokubunji, 2024.09.21

This is a sci-f-adjacent movie about a young woman growing up in a world in which all adults undergo massive plastic surgery to achieve their ideal form. It's sort of Logan's Run affair, where something is clearly off from the outset. Soon, our girl is involved with the outsiders who are trying to overthrow the existing order.

It's a mostly unambitious thing that seems to have less to say about some of the obvious subjects that the situation might present: our obsession with appearance, for instance; or the madness of butchering our faces to feed our vanity. It quickly descends into a CGI-heavy war, but I found myself not caring about the outcomes because I didn't care about the heroine or anybody else. There were no memorable scenes, and everything felt pretty lifeless. I don't know what went wrong but it was so pervasive an impression I wondered if there were problems on the set.

Not recommended.

rand()m quote

It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat.

—Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.