UglyDolls

The UglyDoll concept started out as a long-distance letter between creators David Horvath and Sun-Min Kim that morphed into the plush toys, which gained cult-like success (but never huge mainstream success compared to other more notable toy properties). Still, UglyDoll’s popularity peaked out around a decade ago (circa 2006/2007). So, it’s just very odd/bad timing that the UglyDolls movie is coming out now in 2019, a time when a lot of folks could basically care less. Making matters worse is an unfunny, unfocused script, but the real problem here isn’t necessarily the writing, but the lack of something to write about. The UglyDolls characters are uncompelling and undeveloped, but they’re friggin’ toys after all, there was never much of a story here to the begin with. It kind of reminds me of Masters of the Universe. MOTU was something the toy designers came up with at Mattel so they wouldn’t have to buy a license from a TV show/movie. They didn’t come up with a storyline to base the toys off of first, they made the toys first then created the storyline based off of the toys. To make matters more interesting Filmation made a MOTU cartoon where some of the characters looked different from the toys and the storylines deviated completely from the stories/mythos in the mini-comic books that came with the action figures . Of course this didn’t matter to many of the younger kids, but it did to the older geeks that thought the figures looked cool (’cause those figures did look cool!) (and that’s why they’re worth so much money today!) I digress. But going on this tangent is way more interesting than anything this movie has to offer. All-star cast squandered. Wretched music.

[PG]