This may seem like a minor quibble, but one of the more frustrating aspects to picking movies to review is the scrolling. There have been many films covered by The Legionnaire, over 1,500 in point of fact, and that may appear to be a high total.  I take some pride in this number, and I hope that I am helping you to make more Christ-centered choices when opting for cinematic entertainment.  To do this, I try to look at a movie’s brief summary or trailer and decide how I might use my Catholic analysis while discussing it after viewing it.  To a degree, this is a little like doing something we were always told not to do: judging a book (or in this case, film) by its cover.  Hence, it sometimes takes flipping through selection after selection on Amazon Prime, Disney +, or Netflix (or the wonky new service I recently subscribed to, Retro Reels) before I find something with which I form a mental outline of how to talk about it.  Luckily, today gave me a solid one with the first motion picture to appear on the screen for Netflix, Uglies.  It also turned into a blessing when it speaks to some of the issues I have already mentioned.  Let me explain to you how this works, though it is not all that complicated to understand.

A voice over by the main character, Tally Youngblood (Joey King), begins by summarizing how we got to the division in society between “Pretties” and “Uglies.”  Keep in mind that this is a futuristic, science fiction flick.  As such, it is your standard humans messed up the planet fare, the main culprit being fossil fuels.  The kicker here is that not only were these resources harming the environment, but they also contributed to humanity’s vain pursuit keeping themselves young and vital.  Luckily (I guess), they discover a new, renewable source of energy in the form of a white orchid.  I do not understand how this works, and that is kind of the point.  Its emergence sparked a revolution wherein once people turn sixteen, they could undergo a surgery to make them “pretty” and move to a paradise like city where everyone appears to have a good time all the time.  The entirety of civilization is built upon this system, and Tally and her best friend, Peris (Chase Stokes), get together every evening to watch the nightly fireworks and partying that go on across the river from where they are currently being housed and trained.  You know they are close because they have nicknames for each other: Peris goes by Nose because of his larger than usual facial feature, and Tally is called Squint due to her eyes being small . . . or something.  Honestly, I have no idea why they would be referred to as ugly because there is nothing physically wrong with these people, but we will get into this more later in the review.  For now, it happens to be the eve of Peris’ surgery, and he and Tally make a vow to see each other in one month to catch up and learn about life in the City.  That time goes by and she goes to their prearranged meeting spot despite him not answering any of her messages in the intervening weeks.  Desperate, she decides to sneak into the electric wonderland to locate her friend.  When she does, she encounters not only a better-looking Peris, but one who lacks any of the cares or personality he once possessed.  As confusion sets in, the authorities are alerted to an “unauthorized” person being there, and she must make an escape.  As soon as she is back across the river, she is helped in her evasion by one of her peers, Shay (Brianne Tju).  Once they are safe, they begin talking and discover they have a lot in common, including birthdays.  This is important because it is when you turn sixteen that you undergo the procedure to become Pretty.  For them, this is in two months, and over the course of those days, they become close friends.  Twenty-four hours before that fateful day, Shay insists on taking Tally on one last adventure on their hoverboards.  Their quest takes them well out of their proscribed boundaries to a place that Shay wants to show Tally in the ruins of a city built by their ancestors, whom they refer to as “Rusties.”  Once there, Shay admits that she does not intend to have the operation.  She also reveals that the legendary community of rebels against their system, known as “The Smoke,” is real and that their leader, David (Keith Powers), is coming to take her with them.  Because of all the dreams Tally has had about becoming Pretty, she returns to the city.  However, on the day of her procedure, she is instead called into the office of Dr. Cable (Laverne Cox), the person responsible for the City and who invented the operation.  The scientist wants Tally to confess about what happened to Shay, but the girl claims ignorance.  Dr. Cable then holds up Tally’s transformation until the girl cooperates.  That night, Peris is sent to try and persuade Tally.  During Tally’s next meeting with Dr. Cable, Tally is told that the Smoke is building a weapon that will destroy the City.  This is what gets Tally to agree to help, journeying to the Smoke on her own.  She is to alert the City when she discovers the weapon.  I am getting a little long here, but none of what happens next should be unexpected.  Despite some initial wariness, Tally is taken in by David and the others with some vouching from Shay.  In doing so, she learns that the flowers are actually toxic, and that nothing she has been told about the Smoke is true.  Think hippie commune and you get the idea, though without the marijuana.  Further, she falls in love with David.  This is when she begins to become more honest about her presence, asking about the supposed weapon.  In response, David takes her to meet his parents, Az (Jay DeVon Johnson) and Maddy (Charmie Lee), who, as one-time colleagues of Dr. Cable, have an insight into becoming Pretty.  Basically, it causes brain damage, fundamentally altering a person’s behavior.  Their “weapon” is a serum that can reverse the effects of the operation.  Predictably, this is when Dr. Cable strikes, rounding up everyone at the Smoke and taking them back to the City to turn them all into Pretties.  David and Tally escape, and to make up for her betrayal, Tally offers to assist him in a rescue.  When they get there, they release everyone in the Smoke, but are too late to save Shay.  Peris, too, dies trying to stop them.  While they get away with what they need to cure the Pretties, Tally decides to return to undergo the procedure in order to make sure the antidote works.  It ends with her in her new body, but having kept the scar on her hand to remind her of her promise to the Smoke.

I did not get Tally’s sacrifice at the end of Uglies.  Actually, there are a lot of things I did not understand about the movie, aside from the plot itself which is easy enough to predict.  Still, I am not here to be critical.  As little sense as things make, like calling people ugly who are objectively not so or why Tally would need to be the one to essentially give away her soul, I found that I did not mind the film overall.  I neither disliked it or liked it.  I was completely plussed.  All the same, there are some philosophical aspects to it that dovetail nicely with Faith.  The obvious choice would be to latch on to the dichotomy between prettiness and ugliness.  The solution presented for this is cliché, relying on the notion that beauty is on the inside, and that is what we should care about the most.  Those in the City make the claim that it is by promoting being a Pretty, they maintain order.  The Smoke counters this with the notion that the Pretties do so at the expense of people being given a choice in the matter.  Dr. Cable reinforces this position by stating that free thinking is a cancer, and that people just care about being good looking.  As such, the overarching concern in the movie is free will versus blind obedience.  In thinking about this, I was reminded of 1 Samuel 16:7, “But the LORD said to Samuel: Do not judge from his appearance or from his lofty stature, because I have rejected him. God does not see as a mortal, who sees the appearance. The LORD looks into the heart.”  In reading that verse, I think you can see where this might apply to the movie.  There is a lot in it about being comfortably ignorant in the City versus free but hard working at the Smoke.  As somebody who has studied how Catholicism is perceived in culture, it strikes me that the Faith would be lumped in with the drones that just want to be Pretty.  Yes, Tally is described at one point as beginning to believe in something bigger than herself as symbolized by the communal nature of the Smoke.  Yet, many turn away from God when presented with the notion of giving yourself over completely to Him.  We would rather think that we know what is best for ourselves, not God or His representative Church here on earth.  To many, that sounds more like the City.  For this Catholic, rather, the Smoke reminded me more of the early Church, or modern religious communities, which share everything in common. What I am getting at here is that not all the institutions the movie claims ruined the world are bad, and the ones you may think force you to give up freedom are actually care more about your everlasting soul.  That is what God sees, and in His eyes are you truly beautiful.

As I have mentioned a few times, there is nothing spectacular about Uglies.  As I watched it, I could see all its beats coming before they happened, aside from Tally’s final act.  If that was done in order to set up a potential sequel, then Netflix may be disappointed with the film’s reception.  At any rate, this all adds up to an imminently skippable, if not bad, movie.