Over the years, computer generated effects
have become an increasingly crucial tool in
Hollywood's arsenal — but there's a right
way and a wrong way to handle them.
While some movies use CGI as a gentle paintbrush,
others have clobbered audiences over the head
with it, resulting in big-budget disappointment.
Not all the movies in this list are clunkers,
but if the digital effects were a little bit
better, they might have been better received.
Here are some movies that were all-but-ruined
by their special effects.
I Am Legend
This 2007 movie put Will Smith as the lone
survivor of a zombie-ruled world.
Aside from his trusty canine, Smith spends
the first 40 minutes of the movie totally
alone —
then the Darkseekers show up and ruin everything.
Director Francis Lawrence didn’t intend
to use CGI for the Darkseekers.
He wanted to rely on actors and practical
effects, but when it came time to shoot the
movie, the effects weren’t convincing.
With no time to make corrections, he had to
resort to CGI.
He would later describe the CGI compromise
as a major disappointment in a conversation
with Den of Geek.
"When I saw the dailies, I broke out into
a cold sweat.
They were very pale, and covered in this chalky
powder to protect their skin, which was a
really interesting concept, but it looked
like a bunch of mime artists running across
Washington Square Park.
It didn't work at all."
The Thing
John Carpenter's The Thing is a masterpiece
of practical effects, with body horror sequences
that still look frighteningly good to this
day.
The same cannot be said for The Thing’s
2011 prequel.
While the filmmakers worked to make the story
fit with Carpenter’s chronology, the movie's
special effects don't hold a candle to what
the 1982 version accomplished.
That's not to say they didn't try — the
production hired special effects house studioADI
to bring the gooey, gross monsters to life.
Unfortunately, due to problems with scheduling
and budget, many of the company's practical
effects didn’t show up in the movie.
According to Bloody Disgusting,
"[The film] was such a disaster that studioADI
later fan-funded a film called Harbinger Down,
which was made as an apology for what happened
in 2011."
Tron: Legacy
The majority of the special effects in the
2010 Tron sequel are pretty great — except
for the CGI face of a young Jeff Bridges as
the movie’s villain, Clu.
Despite best efforts, the de-aged Bridges
looked off.
A Time magazine review summed up the issues,
saying,
"He looks just like young Bridges if young
Bridges had had way too much plastic surgery,
so it's hard to take him seriously.
Clu seems more like an unfortunate Botox victim
than a dastardly despot."
Green Lantern
Before Deadpool, Ryan Reynolds suited up for
DC as Hal Jordan, aka Green Lantern — the
first film in a planned franchise for the
glowing green hero.
Those plans didn't pan out.
People came to see the Green Lantern, but
what they got was mostly green screen.
While Reynolds told Yahoo!
Movies that the script was to blame for the
film's failure, the mediocre, wall-to-wall
CGI didn’t help.
A review from ScreenCrush went in on the movie’s
fatal flaws, saying,
"Almost nothing on-screen is real, up to and
including the sense of adventure.
It's just a bunch of digital stuff shooting
other digital stuff.
And some of that digital stuff looks really
bad."
"WOAH"
The Matrix Reloaded
In 1999, The Matrix was a special effects
marvel.
But when The Matrix Reloaded hit theaters
just a few years later, CGI took the driver's
seat.
The high-tech wire work and practical effects
that made the original so jaw-dropping were
washed out in a sea of CGI that looked iffy,
and aged poorly.
This issue is most apparent during the movie's
infamous "Burly Brawl" scene — a sequence
that found Keanu Reeves' Neo battling hundreds
of Agent Smiths.
The concept probably jumped off the page,
but the finished product of the Burly Brawl
is really more of a mushy mess.
The Mummy Returns
When the sequel to The Mummy hit theaters
in 2001, digital effects were still very much
in their infancy, but that didn’t stop this
movie from leaning into the spectacle.
Like a cake that isn’t quite done cooking
yet, the effects look rubbery and half-baked,
and they’ve aged even more poorly than the
mummy itself.
This was Dwayne Johnson's first foray into
the big-budget world of blockbuster movies,
being introduced as the villainous Scorpion
King — unfortunately, the People's Champ
ended up looking more like a video game villain
when he showed up for his climactic fight
scene.
It would’ve been impressive on the Playstation
2, but on the big screen?
Not even close.
Hulk
Ang Lee's character-driven take on the Hulk
has its supporters, but the movie’s special
effects are far from incredible.
The Dissolve, discussing the Marvel movie,
noted that:
"The effects used to create the Hulk keep
hitting the limits of what 2003 CGI could
accomplish, making the monster look more like
a work of animation than green flesh and blood."
When Lee's Hulk hit theaters, the MCU was
just a twinkle in Marvel's eye.
Lee did the best with what he had, but at
the end of the day, Hulk's green giant left
us pining for the good ol' days of Lou Ferrigno
in all his body painted glory.
At least that getup felt real.
Well — sort of.
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