'Uglies' review: It's not a pretty picture

WHAT IT'S ABOUT Even now, years after "The Hunger Games" franchise first made it to the screen, there remains a strong appetite for dystopian young adult material.

So the 2005 novel "Uglies" gets a cinematic adaptation for Netflix, directed by McG (The Drew Barrymore "Charlie's Angels" and its sequel) and starring the always excellent Joey King, best known for playing Gypsy Rose Blanchard in Hulu's "The Act."

The story, which novelist Scott Westerfeld turned into a four-novel series, concerns a future where all 16-year-olds receive cosmetic surgery geared toward making them look conventionally beautiful. This is meant to remove any sort of discontent from society. They go from being "uglies" to "pretties," you see. This process is overseen by the villainous Dr. Cable (Laverne Cox).

King plays Tally Youngblood, a girl on the cusp of turning 16, who takes up with a group of rebels hiding out in a spot of wilderness called The Smoke at the behest of the doctor, who blackmails her into doing so in order to betray them. Things get rather complicated, of course.

MY SAY This is a tough world to adapt for the screen, because the whole construct involves accepting that there's a fundamental difference between the "uglies" and the "pretties."

There's obvious value in the story, an elaborate metaphor about young people who lack the self-confidence to feel as attractive as they should, learning over the course of the "Uglies" journey that there's not one correct way to look, or act, or feel, no matter what social conventions might say.

When you take that away from the realm of the page and the reader's imagination and turn it into a movie, however, you end up with a classic problem. The difference between being "ugly" and "pretty," in the world of the "Uglies" movie, means dressing in everyday sci-fi clothing without makeup versus plopping on makeup, straightening your hair and wearing an expensive dress.

So it's impossible to take seriously, it doesn't transfer well to the screen and the larger purpose gets lost. That leaves the audience with a pedestrian journey through conventional sci-fi territory, with almost every line serving to further the exposition, and no real reason to become emotionally invested in any of it.

Still, "Uglies" has some welcome attributes. McG knows his way around an action picture, King has the charisma necessary to carry the movie even while carving her way through the jargon that passes for dialogue, and the casting of Cox as the villain is inspired. She brings a larger-than-life touch to the picture that it desperately needs.

But even if you're prepared to let the rest of it go and to take "Uglies" as little more than run-of-the-mill entertainment, an abiding cheapness stands in the way. This is best exemplified by the special effects, which are so muddy and so drab that they look like they were lifted straight out of a decades-old video game. Talk about ugly.

BOTTOM LINE Should have stayed on the page.