The 10 ugliest CGI moments in cinema
In the 21st century, computer-generated imagery (CGI) has become a crutch for Hollywood to create vast kingdoms and vicious beasts without needing to spend money on expensive costumes and makeup. It’s only really been in the last two years, however, that CGI has become good enough to convince audiences of its legitimacy, creating tangible technological props with a high degree of realism.
In reality, CGI should only be used sparingly, like Tipp-ex, carefully correcting small mistakes, or used in the background to add extra detail to a spectacular scene. For the likes of Disney and modern superhero movies, however, CGI has been brought to the forefront, used to construct entire characters as well as complete cinematic frames, confusing audiences as to whether a film should be classed as live-action or animation.
For an example of really great CGI, take a look at Martin Scorsese’s Wolf of Wall Street, a film you would have never realised used so much computer-generated assistance. But, for now, we’ll be looking at the worst culprits of hideous CGI in cinema history, focusing on films that had the budget for quality VFX but failed to capitalise on their promise.
The 10 ugliest CGI moments in cinema:
10. The whole movie – Cats (Tom Hooper, 2019)
A notorious flop from one of the most celebrated modern British filmmakers, audiences and critics alike frolicked in the bizarre high-budget feature film that was Tom Hooper’s Cats. Starring the likes of Taylor Swift, Idris Elba, Judi Dench, James Corden, Jennifer Hudson and Rebel Wilson, and helmed by the director of The King’s Speech and The Danish Girl, the 2019 movie is a CGI car crash.
Take a look at the Rum Tum Tugger scene below, and you’ll see what we mean, from the weird furry faces to the forced perspective of the small felines that is often poorly implemented.
9. Swinging about town – Catwoman (Pitof, 2004)
The first superhero movie on this list, and certainly not the last, is a travesty of CGI editing. We’ll cut Catwoman a little bit of slack, considering that 2004 wasn’t exactly the golden age of computer graphics, but it doesn’t quite forgive the horror show of ugly VFX that director Pitof gives us. The true quality of the CGI comes to light in one telling scene when the titular hero is swinging from rooftop to rooftop, looking more like a video game character than an actual actor.
Starring Halle Berry as the feline superhero, she is joined by a supporting cast that includes Sharon Stone, Benjamin Bratt and Frances Conroy, though no one can save this big-budget dumpster fire.
8. The whole movie – The Polar Express (Robert Zemeckis, 2004)
What the hell is The Polar Express? As if your nightmares were animated, Robert Zemeckis bites off far more than he can chew with this innovative 2004 live-action/animation hybrid that failed spectacularly to become the revolutionary movie that it hoped it would be. Each character looks inflated and moves with a strange, disconcerting smoothness, making them feel like apparitions of a lucid dream.
It doesn’t help that the voice work barely matches up to the mouth movements of the main characters, with Tom Hanks, Eddie Deezen and Josh Hutcherson trying pitifully hard to raise the quality of this bizarre Christmas movie.
7. Dain – The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (Peter Jackson, 2014)
Peter Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy was infinitely worse than his Lord of the Rings movies from the same universe, showcasing how, with a rushed production, a great story can be spoiled. Despite boasting a great cast and impressive crewmembers, The Hobbit trilogy could not muster the same excitement as Lord of the Rings, with the shocking CGI throughout making it even harder to connect with the sub-par movies.
The CGI quality is properly exposed in the final movie, The Battle of the Five Armies, where several moments smear the film’s legacy, though when Dain (Billy Connolly) showed up to battle on a boar, we well and truly gave up.
6. Baby scene – Twilight: Breaking Dawn – Part 2 (Bill Condon, 2012)
Writing its name into the history books of meme culture upon its release in 2012, one wonders why they couldn’t just get a real baby for the notorious Renesmee shot in the final film of the Twilight franchise. Showing off the baby in several shots of Breaking Dawn – Part 2, Edward (Robert Pattinson) and Bella (Kristen Stewart) clearly don’t mind that their child’s face looks like soft putty.
Truly, the mind boggles as to why someone on the cast or crew didn’t call in a few favours to get a real newborn baby because instead, we get this strange CGI mess.
5. Neo vs Mr. Smith (s)- The Matrix Reloaded (Lilly Wachowski, Lana Wachowski, 2003)
One of the most notorious cases of poor CGI came in the Wachowski sisters; sequel movie, The Matrix Reloaded, in which Neo (Keanu Reeves) takes on a few hundred Mr. Smiths (Hugo Weaving). Swiping at the suited enemies with a metal pole, Neo sticks it in the ground and proceeds to kick a large number of adversaries, looking like a video-game character as he performs totally impossible tricks.
Though the Wachowskis are ambitious, Neo’s fight in The Matrix Reloaded demonstrates how sometimes their cinematic eye can catch up with them.
4. Plane crash – Air Force One (Wolfgang Petersen, 1997)
The 1990s were a tough time for CGI, particularly when Hollywood was focused on concepts that got increasingly more bombastic with every new release. Starring Harrison Ford, Air Force One, directed by Wolfgang Petersen, tells the story of communist radicals who hijack the U.S President’s personal plane with his family onboard, forcing the most important man in America to fend for himself.
The totally ridiculous film is matched by a totally insane piece of CGI at the end of the film, which would not look out of place as a cut-scene on the Nintendo 64.
3. CGI surfing Die Another Day (Lee Tamahori, 2002)
James Bond is used to a bit of high-octane action, but we’re not even sure Pierce Brosnan’s 007 knew what was going on when he started to surf down an icy tsunami. The whole scene and set-up look atrocious, with it being quite clear that Lee Tamahori and his team went nowhere near a piece of ice to shoot the chilly-looking spectacle, with little of it looking anywhere near authentic.
Marking the end of Pierce Brosnan’s reign as the character, the death of Die Another Day brought a strange, nostalgic curtain call to the 1990s era of 007.
2. The Scorpion King – The Mummy Returns (Stephen Sommers, 2001)
Brendan Fraser has been getting plenty of buzz in recent months for his performance in the Darren Aronofsky movie, The Whale, co-starring Sadie Sink, but the actor found fame back in the early noughties with his action-packed Mummy movies. As well as Fraser, the movie also welcomed the industry mainstay Dwayne Johnson, who is now Hollywood’s highest-paid actor, with a horrific CGI appearance we’re sure that he’d rather forget.
Introduced as the big bad guy to see out the film’s climax, the arrival of Johnson as The Scorpion King forced the mouths of audiences and critics wide open; it’s that bad.
1. The whole movie – Justice League (Zack Snyder, 2017)
We said it earlier, and we’ll say it again: superhero movies are the worst culprits when it comes to awful CGI, and Justice League is a prime example. Coming out in 2017, at a time when good CGI can be intelligently incorporated into a film, Zack Snyder had no excuse for producing the horrendous Justice League, a movie stuffed with so many needless computer graphics that it better resembles a poor-quality video game.
Dark and poorly rendered, the CGI used in the action sequences is truly poor, and the less we say about the efforts to eradicate Henry Cavill’s moustache from the final film, the better.
