Computer Generated Imagery, or CGI as it is commonly known is a cornerstone of the film industry these days. Audiences would be hard-pressed to find a movie released nowadays without it. The technology is used in action films, comedies, and even award-season dramas use it for small, subtle touches. But CGI wasn't always a staple of the industry. Back in the 90s and 2000s, CGI was an experimental process that sometimes constituted far more work than should've been needed.
Directors used CGI to push the boundaries of what filmmakers could do and what audiences could see. While this meant exciting new elements, it also was a period of experimentation that led to some truly notably bad-looking effects works. Even today, there are plenty of films that feature bad CGI, although it is rarely the fault of the VFX artist and more the issue with the producers not giving them the time or resources they need. With that in mind, look back at some CGI that has aged poorly since their movies were released.
11 Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001)
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone kicked off a highly successful film franchise and is a childhood classic for a generation of people. The film was, and still is, well-received thanks to its wonderful cast of characters and compelling story, but also due to the talent of its cast, particularly the three leads. Yet one aspect that has not aged well, and even at the time was criticized, was the VFX.
The movie's practical sets are nothing to sneak at. Yet many of the scenes that require extensive CGI, from the troll to Fluffy the three-headed dog or the extended Quidditch match scene, look rough, particularly compared to the later films in the franchise. The following month, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring would open, and that movie featured some truly amazing CGI, which made Sorcerer's Stone look worse by comparison. Yet it goes to show how well the movie is made that even bad CGI can't bring it down.
10 Alien 3 (1992)
Alien 3 serves as the sequel to both Alien and Aliens. These films were so positively received that a third film was crafted half a decade after the second one. The third film follows Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) after the events of the second film. Ripley crashes onto a secure prison planet and must unite the prisoners to defeat an alien threat.
The film features very early CGI that has aged poorly. The CGI is primarily used on the Xenomorph, the antagonistic alien of the series. Previously, the aliens throughout the series were practical special effects, with the first film using a man in a suit while Aliens used puppetry. However, Alien 3 attempts to use both the practical effects and the modern CGI of the times. Unfortunately, the finished result is one of the weirdest-looking Xenomorphs in the franchise.
9 X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)
X-Men Origins: Wolverine is an origin story for Hugh Jackman's popular mutant character Wolverine from the X-Men films. The film was received poorly by fans and critics alike, and one common criticism was the CGI, which looked worse than it did in the first X-Men released nine years prior.
The most notable was a sequence when Wolverine looks at his claws in the mirror for the first time, as the CGI looks incredibly fake, and they look more plastic than metal. The original films used practical claws, but this movie decided to move to entirely CGI, and in a close-up, it is notably bad. An unfinished work print of the movie leaked online a few weeks before the movie's release, and it says something that the CGI in this sequence looks basically the same in the leaked work print.
8 Green Lantern (2011)
Green Lantern is a film largely panned by critics and audiences alike. It follows Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds) as he is inducted into the Green Lantern Corp and, with his ring, can harness willpower to make hard light constructs. The movie's big creative decision was to feature an entirely CGI suit, as the justification was the suit comes from the ring, so it should look like the constructs the character creates.
Unfortunately, this creative decision might have been the wrong call. This extensive amount of CGI ballooned the film's budget, and even with the amount of time they were given, the suit never quite looked right on Reynolds. Having his head atop a CGI body draws attention to the artifice and makes it look like he is never truly connected to the suit. While other films have featured all CGI suits, Green Lantern was an early example that sadly failed at it.
7 The Polar Express (2004)
The Polar Express follows a nameless young boy as a mystical train shows up at his doorstep. He and a group of other kids travel to the North Pole to meet Santa Claus. The movie was director Robert Zemeckis's first attempt at a fully motion-capture animated movie, and the results certainly show.
The motion capture technology might be able to create life-like-looking humans, yet the issue comes in the eyes. While it can track the rest of the body, it cannot track the eyes, so those are CGI creations and, as a result, look dead-eye, expressionless, and like old dolls. While Zemeckis would experiment with the technology for years after, the box office bomb of Mars Needs Moms basically killed the artform overnight.
6 Justice League (2017)
Justice League features a roster of DC's greatest superheroes as they unite against a foreign threat from another world. Unfortunately, it also features some terrible CGI due to a series of reshoots and the refusal to delay the movie. While Steppenwolf certainly looks fake, and there is some poor composted green screen work, it is Henry Cavill's CGI lip that is the worst offender.
Henry Cavill was in the process of filming Mission Impossible - Falloutwhen Warner Bros. began reshoots on Justice League to reshape the movie from Snyder's original vision. Cavill had grown out a mustache for Mission: Impossible, and he could not shave it due to his commitments to the film, even when Warner Bros. offered Paramount they would pay for a makeup artist to add a mustache on Cavill for the rest of the film. Paramount refused, and Warner Bros. was forced to CGI out the mustache, resulting in Superman's upper lip looking like a plastic doll.
5 Die Another Day (2002)
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The James Bond film series follows an MI6 super spy as he discovers and unravels world-ending plots. The franchise has been running since 1962, and while audiences tended to suspend their disbelief for many of Bond's antic, Die Another Day truly tested audiences' patience. The movie is overtly reliant on CGI action, but the most egregious is when Bond parachutes down into an icy ocean and surfs along the top of the water.
The CGI was poorly done, and it looks like a child discovered their Pierce Brosnan James Bond action figure and decided to play with it in the sink. It's over the top and looks like a cartoon. The poor reaction to the movie, and this scene in particular, forced the producers to reconsider their approach to the franchise leading the way to the 2006 reboot Casino Royale starring Daniel Craig.
3 Lost in Space (1998)
Jurassic Park's groundbreaking visual effects in 1993 made it seem like anything filmmakers could imagine could be possible, yet the technology was still in its early days and needed skilled hands to guide it and to be used sparingly. The filmmakers behind Lost in Space truly jumped into the deep end quickly and sadly suffered for it. While the notable CGI space fights at the beginning now look like a PS2 cutscene, the biggest offenders are the CGI creatures.
Specifically the space monkey character Blarp. An adaptation of the character Bloop from the original series, here the character is a fully CGI creation, and it sticks out of the movie like a sore thumb. Bloop never looks like it is interacting with the environment or the cast, and the odd coloring of the creature makes it look like a rough draft of what a CGI character should be before the textures are added in. Combine that with the giant spider Doctor Smith later in the movie, and Lost in Space was an early attempt to cash in on CGI effects that immediately disappointed.
2 Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (1997)
Mortal Kombat: Annihilation is often panned as one of the worst videogame adaptations of all time. It follows a group of familiar faces from the videogame series of the same name as they attempt to stop the world from annihilation. The final battle of the film sees the protagonist and antagonist take bestial forms to fight one another.
Unfortunately, the film's budget didn't allow for an amazing transition, and the two end up transforming into a gelatinous mess of bits and fighting it out. Mortal Kombat already had notably bad CGI, yet this sequel makes the previous film look like Avatar.
1 The Mummy Returns (2001)
When it comes to bad CGI work, The Mummy Returns is likely the one that audiences think to reference first. Even in 2001, audiences immediately knew something was wrong when a rubbery Scorpion King with a plastic-looking Dwayne Johnson face showed up. While the movie does feature some impressive CGI throughout the rest of the movie, the Scorpion King character design overshadowed the rest of the film and became its lasting legacy.
CGI characters have come a long way. The following year The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers would wow audiences with Gollum, and then in 2006, Davy Jones in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest showed how impressive and life-like a CGI character could be. The Mummy Returns fumbled the ball hard, but it served its purpose of showing how not to do a CGI character.
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