Checked out the new kids animated flick UglyDolls for some abstract reason. Maybe to hatewatch, maybe with a glimmering hope for a decent animated flick that doesn’t have the name Disney or Pixar on it.
Uglydolls starts out as one of the most aggressively average, not-even-trying-hard movies I’ve seen. Full of ideas done better in better (and sometimes MUCH better movies), mediocre songs sung by talented pop stars who can’t save the mediocrity, and a general predictable, pat plot. The movie gets a really low score for barely lifting a finger to be anything more than mediocre. Even mediocre kids movies like Trolls, the Boss Baby, and Wonderpark at least had more loopy ideas.
The general plot is that imperfect plush dolls are rejected at the factory and are exiled to a town called Uglyville (or Uglytown). All the reject dolls with missing eyes, malformed bodies, buck teeth live their lives here hoping that one day they will be picked and matched with a child who will love them. One doll (voiced by Kelly Clarkson) is tired of waiting and goes on a quest to find the real world.
To its minor credit… the overall theme of the flick (that your imperfections make you unique) is at least well-intentioned. Of course, it implies then that anyone handsome or perfect is necessarily evil. That’s a fine message for the movie to dole out to kids for the basic reason they are trying to sell actual plush toys to children in real life.
Mediocre pablum. I guess I should have seen it coming and saved me the movie theater experience. Skip.
Score: 56