CGI in movies can be very hit and miss at times. Mostly miss.
Put to its intended use it blends in so seamlessly with everything else on the screen you believe that it’s real.
Other times the CGI can be so bad that it becomes hilariously distracting to the overall feature.
If you’re a fan of CGI we suggest you look away at the below list. It’s just 10 cringe-worthy moments in cinema history that we’d rather forget.
Any of the below disasters could have been rectified by good old fashioned practical effects.
Let’s dive in!
Justice League (2017)
With a budget of $300 million, you’d think that Warner Bros could have initiated more care and attention when it came to removing Henry Cavil’s moustache.
Cavill had to grow the beard for Mission Impossible: Fallout and Paramount wouldn’t allow him to shave it so the special effects team on Justice League had to erase it frame-by-frame in post-production.
What resulted was a human skin mask over Cavill’s face that was as hilarious as it was horrific.
Freddy Vs Jason (2003)
As Freddy weaves his way between the dream world and reality he transforms into a little CGI monster.
The budget was no excuse here as a practical effect such as the incredible Freddy Snake in Nightmare on Elm Street 3 looked superb. But no, instead they went for a CGI disaster that completely alienated the scares and transformed it into a CGI disaster.
The Hulk (2003)
The very same man behind the CGI masterpiece that is The Life of Pi also made this abomination.
The Hulk movie was the perfect live-action Shrek film we’d always dreamed of!
Ang Lee made Eric Bana’s face float, bounce around and look completely out of place in this huge giant green advert for faceinhole.com.
Skyscraper (2018)
The Dwayne Johnson epic that bombed hard at the box-office had some of the worst helicopter CGI I’ve seen for a long time.
During a particular crash scene, we have real-world actors reacting to this helicopter crash. We cut to the helicopter that looks as though it has been rendered on a 90’s games console.
You just can’t take the scene seriously whatsoever.
The problem with Skyscraper however, is that it’s a very CGI reliant movie so this is certainly not the only horrific scene throughout this awful Die Hard wannabe.
Sharknado (2013)
Whilst a film of cult classic status you can’t deny that low-budget certainly meant lower than low quality as these pixel led sharks destroyed a town.
The whole film amplifies the cheesy and it knows exactly what it’s doing and that’s what makes it great but they could have spent at least longer than 30 minutes on creating the stars of the show!
The Matrix Reloaded (2003)
The iconic scene where Neo fights hundreds of Agent Smith clones is an incredible scene indeed. It would have been even better if Keanu Reeves didn’t look like a waxwork model fighting on a stick in Kindergarten.
Revolutionary at the time for such a large scale fight sequence.
The effort has to be applauded but there’s no denying how bad it looks regardless.
Let’s hope the upcoming Matrix 4 stays away from scenes like this!
Green Lantern (2011)
We all know actor Ryan Reynolds feelings on this movie as made abundantly clear in the Deadpool movies.
The whole film (including Reynolds himself) is a CGI disaster. Easily one of the worst superhero movies ever created.
Acting on a greenscreen only works when the digital effects compliment the movie. Instead, it looks as though we’re in a really warped Mortal Kombat line-up as we have to suffer bad acting, plot, story and structure on top of eye strain!
I’d rather watch Del Boy and Rodney in spandex in an episode of Only Fools and Horses any day!
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)
To add further insult to DC and clearly not ones to have learned a lesson Batman V Superman built Doomsday up as this iconic and most fearsome villain.
The one creature who succeeded in killing Superman himself but no. This disaster of a character appeared in all of its CGI tomfoolery and added to yet another DC failure.
He was hardly Thanos, was he?!
We definitely think DC should put more care and attention into their CGI, that’s the second time they’ve been included in this list!
Cats (2019)
Already voted one of the worst CGI movies of all time Cats completely destroyed all we knew and loved about the musical and took a big steaming digital dump on proceedings.
What an awful movie. Even funnier the visual effects department stood up for their mess of a creation. Just stop guys. Just stop.
The Mummy Returns (2001)
Certainly, the most memorable CGI movie disaster is the Scorpion King’s appearance in The Mummy Returns.
Built-up to be the ultimate showdown as Brendan Fraser goes toe to toe with Dwayne Johnson’s The Scorpion King and then he appears and the entire audience burst out laughing.
Looking like a Playstation boss at the end of a video game level this was easily one of the most notorious CGI disasters of recent memory.
It’s even funnier watching a confused Brendan Fraser dodging, ducking and diving away from this computer-generated freakshow.
Can you smell what poorly rendered Rock is cooking?
Overall
A special mention goes to the hilarious introduction of Voldemort in Harry Potter (see above).
Many of the films in this particular list are recent movies. The older a movie is the more they can be forgiven due to visual effects technology not being as advanced as it is today but there’s no excuse for many of the movies listed above.
It’s just sheer laziness and cost-cutting for the most part but for us the audience it provides a nice bit of comedic relief.
You don’t expect multi-million dollar productions to look like college assignment projects. You expect big-budget quality.
It’s even more surprising that companies like DC / Warner Bros allow such mistakes to appear on the big screen for movies they rely on for big box office income.
Quite the lazy, laid back attitude where you release a bad looking movie and rely on the fanbase to rake in that money on your inferior product.
What is the worst example of CGI you’ve seen in a movie? Comment below
i think jar jar binks in star wars