Holy shit, CGI has changed the way we
look at the world around us. Back in the 70’s if you were waiting for
the
movie to start and the bucket of popcorn grew eyes and started
dancing
around the counter top assisted by a reanimated bag of Skittles
you’d
puke in your hat and call a ventriloquist, a priest, and a burly
cop
six weeks from retirement to come deal with it. Now we can’t flip
through
the channels without seeing a seemingly living 2,000 foot robot
whipping
up a lather in his 17,000 foot shower or a muffin writhing out
of
some
bitch’s grasp as she does a walk-and-talk about menopause being a
real pisser. Superman
made us believe a man could fly but it wasn’t until The Revenge of the Sith
that we could believe that Christopher Lee had both Jedi Powers and
Phase-Shift
Parkinsons.
CGI is an amazing tool that many
filmmakers
wield like a digital Mjolnir,
creating worlds and creatures that take our breath away. Unfortunately
through
the years some have used it as a scythe, slashing our dreams and
severing
that muscle that connects our sexual pleasure organs to the
muscle
that tells our mind we’re really good at using our sexual
pleasure
organs.
The result is oblivion.
So with that we bring you CHUD’s
latest
glorious list. The twenty worst instances of CGI in movie
history.
In
no order. Well, except the order we decide to do them.
Brought to you by David Oliver
THE OFFENDER:
Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (1997)
THE
SCENE:
After roughly 75 minutes of just God awful everything (take your pick: characterization, plot, effects, ear-thumping techno, even some of the fighting which, you know, is the entire point of the film) protagonist, Liu Kang (Robin Shou) is engaged in a pitched battle with villain, Shao Kahn (Brian Thompson), for the fate of the Earth. Said battle isn’t going so hot, so Liu invokes one of the lamer aspects of the Mortal Kombat games’ features: his Animality. Basically he turns into a CGI dragon. A really, really bad CGI dragon. Like, Killer-Croc-ass-raped-a-Sleestak-and-this-is-their-lovechild-with-mutant-eczema bad CGI dragon. Not to be outdone, Shao Kahn turns into an even worse multi-headed…whatever in the name of Hydra’s butthole that was. They continue the aforementioned pitched battle in a shitfest of ill-advised pixelation.
WHERE IT
ALL GOES WRONG: Where did it ever go right with this movie? This particular bad CGI sequence was the cherry on top of a turdcake. Where the original Mortal Kombat was a fun shlockfest populated by a hamming Christopher Lambert and some decent fights, Annihilation was exactly that to the MK franchise: instant death. And it wasn’t merely the above-mentioned deficiencies in plot, nor characters. Annihilation simply was bad CGI throughout.
Instances are far too numerous to list here, but some examples include the entire opening scenes and their backgrounds, Jonny Cage’s power jump, the little dragon tattoos that folded up on themselves after the death of a bad guy, the demon that came out of the wall and ate Jade, the two merging realms, and on and on. Motaro in full shot frequently looked like a horse’s ass. But the capper was definitely the Animality ghastliness. The whole movie was an exercise in how not to do computer effects.
BEEN DONE PRACTICALLY: This one sequence – two exotic creatures battling one another – screamed for Ray Harryhausen. The whole rest of the film just screamed to not have not sucked like Torri Welles in a black hole.
HOW BAD
IS
IT? Very.
IN
SUMMATION: Flawless atrocity.
27 comments
Glad I've never seen it.
Kudos for invoking Tori Welles.
I love this list and hope you just keep it going, as there is no shortage of examples.
A few that I can remember, due to them being seared into my mind in the same way seeing your father being ass raped by Busta Rhymes would sear itself, is Scooby Doo from "Scooby Doo".
Also, the bad CGI in "Drag Me To Hell" was the only thing stopping it from being perfect. CGI Brandon Lee in "The Crow", the aliens at the end of "Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" (ugh), at the end of "Blade" when Deacon Frost turns into that giant blood blob, everything in "Ghosts of Mars"…
But, the absolute worst has to go to "Spawn" when they go to Hell. Hell looks terrible, but then the Devil himself comes up, and it is the one of, if not the most awkward looking thing in a major motion picture release ever. It looks like CGI from a local company's basic cable commercial
what happened to the list of mediocrity?! that cut off way to soon. jonathan mostow, barry sonnenfield, and gil junger are still waiting for their due.
The first time I can remember looking at a CGI effect and thinking "Wow, what a load of shit" was when I saw BATMAN FOREVER in 1995. The end of the movie features grainy CGI rivers of green light flowing over a grainy CGI Gotham. I don't even remember why this happens. But I was so sad.
The trailer reminded me of a FMV Sega CD game.
i saw this in theaters, lol…i was 17 and i was a fan of the first. my god….i cannot explain how horrible this movie is! the first 2 minutes I knew…i ended up talking to some 40 year old woman through the entire thing laughing at how bad it was. would make for a good drinking game when you see CGI.
My friends and I just watched this last Friday and were collectively flabbergasted by how terrible the CGI in the final sequence was. I really don't know if any other movie on this list can top that clunker but I'll wait and see.
I saw this when it came out on video, but all I remember is feeling bad for Motaro. He looks like his mom made his costume.
I'm enjoying this series. here's another couple of personal picks:
– Arnie plunging into the waterfall in Collateral Damage. Had they never seen The Fugitive do it so much better so many years earlier??
– The CGI alien at the end of Mission To Mars, which was like a bad computer game insert. Why not just stick a dude into a proper frigging rubber costume??
Jesus…watch the segment of Island of Dr. Moreau where some cat-like creature bounds off into the jungle. It actually looks like someone used a sketch pad and super-imposed it over the film. Worst CGI…………EVER.
What is that first pic? Is that Gmork from The Neverending Story?
This was a turd-fest of epic proportions, especially when you consider Jurassic Park was made in '93. Absolutely no excuse (unless they were going for the 16 bit video game look, in which case they succeeded). But one that doesn't get a lot of consideration was the facial CGI for Frank Langella in The Box. I mean…come on. The movie not only sucked, but the CGI LOOKS like it was made in '97….and this pile of crap was a 2009 film! Apparently, they didn’t realize that you can do CGI on something more powerful than a Pentium II.
Air Force One better make this list, with its terrible CGI plane crash at the end.
Good CGI couldn't have saved this piece of shit.
The list should cover End of Days, the devil at the end killed the rest of the movie, which was pretty good up to that point.
I own this simply because of how awful it is.
You can tell something is wrong from the first minute of the film. Were they so low on budget they had to recycle the exact same opening from the first movie?
I recall seeing this with a friend an begging to leave about half an hour in but staying because he firmly believed that at some point it would get better. Also, gotta second Spawn being on this list. That scene in hell looked like something cooked up in the 80s for some hair metal band's music video.
I saw "Boogie Nights" and "Mortal Kombat: Annihilation" back-to-back on the same day at the movie theater. "Boogie Nights" went on to become my favorite movie of all time, while this was probably the worst movie I've ever paid to see in the theater. The universe has a funny way of balancing itself out, I guess. I agree that the first MK was a guilty pleasure, and not really a good movie by any stretch of the imagination, but it only really works as a one-off. The sequel killed a lot of the good will that I had towards it. Also, "Annihilation" began the trend of sequels that made their Paul W.S. Anderson-directed predecessors look fantastic by comparison (see also: Resident Evil, Alien vs. Predator).
God this movie sucked. It was so painful to watch. The CGI was probably the least offensive thing to deal with in this AIDS-infected crapfest.
Its a real shame because the stunt players were Ray Park and Tony Jaa and this movie somehow even made THAT suck.
And the list lives up to its title FINALLY!
I remember reading somewhere that the actress that played sheeva was pissed because they killed off her character so lamely….I dont know about her but I would have fired my agent for even suggesting this shit fest
I agree with Jonestad… I wasn't fond of the SE effects from SW 97/04 but there have been worse cases of CGI. The E.T. effects weren't even noticeable so that was just being way picky on the CHUD staff part. But let's face it, Lucas and Spielberg are punching bags for this site. Anyway I agree with this entry.
Tony Jaa was Liu Kang's stunt double in this movie. no joke.
I nominate SPAWN for bad cgi(violator was the only decent thing there) remember the worse than videogame hell and the laughably bad malbojia(sic) as well as the cape, chains and suit effects
I somehow missed this entry – only the recent "Spawn" entry clued me in that you had done this movie already. Thank god you did – this is the one entry on this list that absolutely belongs without question. Wish you had focused more on the tattoos, since they feature the exact same "take" of bad cg EVERY FREAKIN' TIME THEY APPEAR! But yes, this ending is a huge cartoon, and it's poorly-lit to the level that makes you think "Yeah, they knew this sucked." Easily the single worst offender on your list to date, kudos.
Comments are shown as archived from the original site; new comments are closed.