“Uglies” is another cut-and-paste dystopia-masquerading as-utopia-YA sci-fi thriller about youth imperiled and in revolt.

It borrows from “Logan’s Run” and every book series/film series it inspired and a famous “Twilight Zone” episode — “Eye of the Beholder” — in creating a future where being “pretty” is not just the goal, it’s the great social equalizer and a way to narcotize the populace of the gorgeous and the forever young.

Packed with explanations, future tech and a big fat sensitive “uglies” vs. insensate “pretties” parable, it’s a standard-issue franchise-starter (based on a novel by Scott Westerfeld) and a stunning bore to anyone old enough to look at the PG-13 rating in their life experience’s rear view mirror.

“Kissing Booth” to “Family Affair” and “The Princess” streaming queen Joey King is our heroine, Tally, an ugly awaiting her surgery in “the dorms,” the high school where all pre-pretty kids are groomed for their gorgeous, carefree future, focusing on that one transformative moment that will take all their cares away.

Pretty Tally is thus merely “Squint,” her nickname taken from her least attractive physical trait. She is a parkour practicing rebel who hopes she and her bestie Peris (Chase Stokes), a pretty boy save for his “Nose,” are bonded forever with a connection that will endure past their surgeries.

But he gets operated on first, and drops right into the never-ending revel of life as a “pretty.” The shock of his brush-off has Squint more than open to friendship with classmate Shay, aka “Skinny” (Brianne Tju) and her hoverboarding hooliganism.

Shay has no interest in the surgery and is all about “escape” to “The Smoke,” a rumored counter culture beyond the reach of the pretties, their autocracy and their hi-tech “scouts.” The mythical “David” and his fight-with-fire followers in “The Smoke” are part of that lure.

Merely dabbling in breaking curfew and talking-up this alternate lifestyle could get one’s surgery “canceled.” Shay is fleeing, so she doesn’t care. But when that happens to her, Squint is shocked, and when confronted by the scientist leader of their Future Culture, Dr. Cable (Laverne Cox of “Orange is the New Black”) Tally agrees to follow Shay and report her whereabouts, just for the chance to be “pretty.”

The characters are a pretty and pretty bland lot, with David (Keith Powers) just as runway model-ready as everybody else. King is nobody’s idea of “ugly,” and at 25, should probably stop accepting Netflix money to play “high school” characters.

The dialogue is so burdened with exposition, background and “That’s how we’ll change the world” plans that the predictable narrative never shows any potential.

Veteran director McG is a long way from “Charlie’s Angels” and “We Are Marshall,” and makes no impression on this effects (cool) and stunts (dull) dominated production, a YA adaptation as sexless as any “Hunger Games,” “Ender’s Game,” “Maze Runner” or “Divergent” installment.

Without romance there’s no warmth and no stakes. And while that’s understandable as every “pretty” looks as AI-polished as Squint’s idealizing “mirror” mirror on the wall, it makes “Uglies” a singularly heartless outing in the YA sci-fi genre, one with an obvious and obviously-botched “moral.” By the time the credits roll, it’s succeeded in creating zero interest in investing any more time in this universe or this story.

Rating: PG-13, violence

Cast: Joey King, Laverne Cox, Brianne Tju, Keith Powers, Chase Stokes and Charmin Lee.

Credits: Directed by McG, scripted by Jacob Forman, Vanessa Taylor and Whit Anderson, based on a Scott Westerfeld novel. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:42