★★
The free-spirited UglyDolls confront what it means to be different, struggle with a desire to be loved, and ultimately discover who you truly are is what matters most.
Classification: U
While clearly an allegory for celebrating inner beauty and how superficial concepts such as perfection and popularity are more damaging than helpful, STX films first foray into animation is well-intentioned but there isn't enough from the overall experience that makes it a worthwhile adventure. Uglydolls has its moments, especially in the third act when it puts its heart on full display and actually conjures genuine emotion from the audience but it's mostly a slog through an unoriginal storyline with mundane humour and the occasional fun tune. Having most of the voice cast be musicians may not pay off with making performances particularly striking but it does make the songs of the film far more enjoyable as they are Uglydolls best feature. Kelly Asbury's direction does make it a fun adventure for young audiences but it fails to create anything tangible that can surpass or survive beyond that.
Uglydolls at times can just feel like a series of animated music videos when it isn't borrowing its story beats from popular Pixar films. Most of the songs fall into the modern pop song genre playing to the vocal strengths of their talent, Kelly Clarkson as lead character Moxy gives an ardent performance and sings the films best songs with as much enthusiasm. The craft world design to the world and characters of Uglydolls gives the animation team some creativity with creating the musical sequences but without a capable story for a foundation its easy to just lose interest as the next one starts. The design and internal logic of the film are flawed at points, nothing that breaks the suspension of disbelief entirely but the film implies at points that the dolls both ugly and not seem to live in a dimension separate from our own. Both locations appear to exist in their own voids connected by a pipe system within a toy factory, Asbury and screenwriter Alison Peck's work to make their unique vision of living toys makes the rationale harder to process and has Uglydolls appear closer to imitating Monsters University rather than Toy Story.
It is consistent in its messaging even if it can feel derivative of other animated films, Uglydolls focuses its drama on a wholesome message for children and families. It's clear who's in the right and who's in the wrong but there is nothing that makes the film clever in its approach, it feels shallow, aiming at the most obvious clichés and targets. The "heroes" are deformed creatures while the "villains" are dolls dressed like stuck up prep school kids except for Janelle Monae's character of Mandy. Her imperfection is that she wears glasses and ashamed of it hides it from her perfect doll friends, through the antics of the Uglydolls however she learns to accept who she is. The story targets the most frivolous flaws about the main characters, then create conflicts about their self worth as they told time and time again that they are not worthy of being real toys and finally go for the obvious "its what on the inside that counts" ending. Uglydolls gives the impression it wants to tackle storytelling of the level of classic animated films but doesn't put in the work to makes it own voice unique against the crowd despite being a film that wants to champion individuality.
It's cute even with its "ugly" characters and a strange dog-like creature voiced by Pitbull, the film loses focus and momentum at times but does surprisingly have its moments that showed potential in its story. Unfortunately, those moments aren't enough to excuse the lacklustre jokes and poor character development that make most of the runtime tedious for anyone over the age of 8. Vocal performances are serviceable but not memorable but its when Uglydolls lets the music flow that the monotony dissipates if only for a few moments. There is not a huge reliance on pop culture references or tired animated comedy tropes as Asbury makes the film focus more on the world and music of Uglydolls so it does feel less painful to watch than other poor ventures into children's animation. Uglydolls had potential but at some point along the way, the easier and more predictable decisions were made which makes the overall adventure forgettable and standard.
Director: #KellyAsbury
Cast: #KellyClarkson, #JanelleMonae, #BlakeShelton, #WandaSykes, #GabrielIglesias, #EmmaRoberts, #WangLeehom, #BebeRexha, #CharliXCX, #Lizzo, #NickJonas, #Pitbull
Release Date: August 16th 2019
Trailer:
Written review copyright ©CoreyBullochReviews
Images and Synopsis from the Internet Movie Database
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