In the adorably different town of Uglyville, weird is celebrated, strange is special and beauty is embraced as more than simply meets the eye.
Millions of dolls are manufactured every year for kids to play. But what happens to those that are less than perfect? The ones who aren't perfect enough to hit the stores because of their irregularities go to Uglyville where all the rejected dolls are sent to live. One plucky doll named Moxy, played by Kelly Clarkson, believes that she will get chosen to be someone's doll eventually. She convinces her friends to join her in search of the big world, but instead, they come across the Institute for Perfection where dolls go through a series of tests to be paired with the right child.
Although its core idea is that we should accept one another despite our differences, 'UglyDolls' squanders this timeless lesson and reduces it to a film that doesn't know how to engage with its audience. Breaking into song at every occasion it gets to maximise the talents of its voice cast is the logical approach, but the tracks are neither well written nor composed to make them memorable. They end up becoming a drag, and it doesn't help that the rest of the plot isn't exactly innovative either. Add voice acting that's uninspired with almost every actor seemingly phoning in their lines. In this sea of weak performances, Janelle Monae makes a genuine attempt to make her character Mandy stand out, but her role is relatively small to make a significant difference.
To make matters worse, the animation and character design are both less than stellar. Although the 'ugly dolls' are made to look endearing enough, the 'perfect' dolls come across as poorly rendered video game ripoffs. The environment designs aren't memorable despite the limited areas the film is set in. The biggest blunder is the film's screenplay that goes all over the place as it's unable to keep its target audience in focus - it veers between catering to kids and then to adolescents, with its group dynamics, and the constant peer pressure to look a certain way. Sadly, this ends up being - and there's no joy in making this pun - an ugly mess.
Although its core idea is that we should accept one another despite our differences, 'UglyDolls' squanders this timeless lesson and reduces it to a film that doesn't know how to engage with its audience. Breaking into song at every occasion it gets to maximise the talents of its voice cast is the logical approach, but the tracks are neither well written nor composed to make them memorable. They end up becoming a drag, and it doesn't help that the rest of the plot isn't exactly innovative either. Add voice acting that's uninspired with almost every actor seemingly phoning in their lines. In this sea of weak performances, Janelle Monae makes a genuine attempt to make her character Mandy stand out, but her role is relatively small to make a significant difference.
To make matters worse, the animation and character design are both less than stellar. Although the 'ugly dolls' are made to look endearing enough, the 'perfect' dolls come across as poorly rendered video game ripoffs. The environment designs aren't memorable despite the limited areas the film is set in. The biggest blunder is the film's screenplay that goes all over the place as it's unable to keep its target audience in focus - it veers between catering to kids and then to adolescents, with its group dynamics, and the constant peer pressure to look a certain way. Sadly, this ends up being - and there's no joy in making this pun - an ugly mess.