Though many decry the excess presence of CGI in modern movies, it’s also an incredible tool with which smart filmmakers can enhance their storytelling and show us things we never could’ve imagined. But the complaints are nevertheless justified – expensive visual effects are often wielded by those without the skill to integrate them in a way that benefits the overall product, resulting in them proving more of a distracting hindrance than an eye-popping benefit.
While many of the movies on this list had their fair share of dazzling VFX moments, they were also guilty of letting some truly woeful ones slip through the cracks. These scenes didn’t just serve up underwhelming or “bad” CGI, but the sort of effects shots that had you actively questioning how anyone in a position of power on the production signed off on it.
From uncanny valley animals to awful AI deepfakes and everything else in-between, these are the CGI effects from recent movies that had you reflexively wincing the moment they came on the screen, wondering how they could ever be considered “good enough.”
In some instances, it’s something viewers simply accepted and moved on from, but in others, it had a catastrophic effect on the final impression of the overall movie.
Gladiator II is an undeniably bombastic spectacle, though given the $300+ million allegedly spent on its production, some of the dodgy animal effects are pretty damn disappointing. And we’re mainly talking about the early action sequence where Lucius (Paul Mescal) and the other slaves battle a pack of feral baboons. Except, the VFX are so cartoonishly over-the-top that you’d be forgiven for assuming these creatures were actually fictional animals created solely for the movie that have never existed in reality.
It all becomes even less persuasive when Lucius has a one-on-one fight with the baboons’ pack leader, where any remaining thread of verisimilitude is promptly snapped.
While some have theorised that Ridley Scott might’ve had the VFX team make the animals look “otherworldly” on purpose in order to make the audience less sympathetic towards them, the ultimate result is that their unconvincing presence is more of an unfortunate distraction than anything.
Again, this is a $300 million movie.
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