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00:00 So, CGI is everywhere in movies these days. All but the most low-budget of films will
00:05 use visual effects for a multitude of reasons, but all are in an attempt to elevate the production
00:10 in one way or another. But the examples that we're looking at today, well, they dragged
00:14 entire projects down. So let's take a look at them as I'm Jules, this is WhatCulture.com,
00:18 and these are 10 CGI fails that totally ruined recent movies.
00:23 10. All the goofy analyst effects
00:26 The Matrix Resurrections
00:28 The Matrix Resurrections is one of the most confounding movies of the last year, an ambitious
00:32 swing and a miss for writer-director Lana Wachowski, which overreaches with its clumsy
00:37 meta-commentary while also failing to deliver satisfying action sequences. There are admittedly
00:43 several issues which prevent the action from living up to the three previous films, and
00:48 the ugly digital cinematography is a major culprit. And Wachowski's clear disinterest
00:53 in even trying to match, let alone top, the accomplishments of the original trilogy. But
00:58 perhaps the biggest disappointment of Resurrections is that it's utterly lacking in groundbreaking
01:02 visual effects moments. In an era where spectacle is commonplace, Resurrections' VFX looks
01:09 dead ordinary at best, and in some cases are legitimately unpleasant. The biggest offender
01:14 by far is the decision to deploy a visually repulsive effect on the film's villain, the
01:19 analyst, during several of his scenes. For instance, when the analyst springs a bullet
01:24 time trap on Neo, the scene was shot with two cameras at the same time, each running
01:29 at a different frame rate, 24 frames per second and 120 frames per second. These shots were
01:34 then composited together in post-production to produce an off-kilter image that we see
01:39 in the final film, which is ultimately more of a stuttery, blurry mess than a compelling
01:43 trippy look that Wachowski was presumably going for. Unlike most films on this list,
01:48 it's less that the fidelity of the VFX were poor throughout, than the execution being
01:52 totally off, ensuring the awe-striking feeling of the first three movies was completely absent
01:57 here.
01:58 9. The Tyrant and the Cerberus – Resident Evil, Welcome to Raccoon City
02:03 Oh, Resident Evil. Fans of the video games really, really, really wanted Welcome to Raccoon
02:09 City to deliver a more spirited, faithful rendition of the video game series compared
02:14 to the Paul W.S. Anderson films, but the end result was a cheap, unintentionally comical
02:18 and mostly poorly acted mess. One of the defining problems was its rather low budget of $25
02:24 million, less than even the original's $33 million price tag, ensuring that the directing
02:29 team was unable to render the series' iconic creatures with lavishly grotesque VFX. Instead,
02:35 there's a pronounced bargain-basement quality to the film's two major digital creatures,
02:40 the zombie dog known as the Cerberus and William Birkin's final mutation. Given that these
02:44 are two of the game's most iconic villains, to see them look ironically like something
02:49 out of a PS1 FMV was the last straw for a lot of fans, who had basically already given
02:54 up on the movie. Hopefully Netflix spent a little more money on the upcoming Resident
02:58 Evil TV series.
03:00 8. Poorly Green-Screened Fan Bing Bing – The 355
03:04 The 355 is admittedly a pretty terrible movie any way you slice it. A migraine-inducingly
03:10 boring spy thriller packed with limp action sequences, atrocious dialogue, and some weirdly
03:15 awful visual effects. Many of the few people who actually bothered to watch it noted that
03:20 the cast member, Fan Bing Bing, looked a little strange throughout the film, as though some
03:24 sort of post-production effect was applied to her. But upon closer inspection, it appears
03:29 that Bing Bing was actually green-screened into a number of the film's scenes, most
03:33 distractingly during her final farewell from the rest of the team, where her personal lighting
03:37 doesn't match that of the rest of the scene at all.
03:40 Throughout the film, we rarely see her in shots with her fellow cast members, and it's
03:44 hilariously clear that she shot a good portion of her material without them, with the VFX
03:49 and editing teams tasked with incorporating it into existing footage. While we don't
03:54 know exactly what went down, between the 355 undergoing extensive reshoot and Bing Bing's
03:59 movements being restricted by the Chinese government due to her recent tax evasion scandal,
04:03 it's possible that director Simon Kinberg simply had to make the best with her limited
04:07 availability. Either way, Bing Bing looks subtly off most of the time that she's on
04:11 screen, and while the audience might not know precisely why, their brain absolutely understands
04:15 that something isn't right, the lighting doesn't match, and she isn't sharing a
04:19 physical space with her co-stars.
04:21 7. That's Definitely Not Egypt – Death on the Nile
04:26 To be completely fair to Kenneth Branagh's long-delayed Agatha Christie adaptation, Death
04:30 on the Nile is actually a pretty fun time in terms of its frothy story and knowing performances,
04:35 even though it's tough not to be constantly distracted by the rather woefully unsatisfactory
04:39 VFX. The bulk of the murder-mystery plot naturally unfolds on the cruise ship, the SS Karnak,
04:45 that's sailing down the Nile, and yet there's such a blatant artificiality to the exterior
04:50 elements that it's never even remotely convincing that the film was actually shot in Egypt,
04:55 although the production originally considered filming in Egypt and then Morocco, the latter
04:59 a common stand-in for the former, it was ultimately deemed too difficult, and so the entire main
05:03 shoot was instead filmed on soundstages in England. A second unit did shoot some background
05:09 plates in Egypt, yet whenever the cast are outside of the ship, it's painfully apparent
05:13 that they're just performing in front of a green screen, which was then composited
05:16 into a digital backdrop later. This is most egregiously apparent when Jackie first boards
05:21 the ship in a lavish wide shot of the horizon, which looks laughably fake.
05:25 6. The Uncanny Valley Mermaids – The King's Daughter
05:29 The plot focuses on King Louis XIV's attempts to kidnap a mermaid and steal her life force
05:34 in order to ensure his own immortality. The mermaid is played through performance capture
05:38 by Fan Bingbing, who seems to be rather unlucky where botched CGI is concerned according to
05:42 this list, and the mermaid is, quite simply, horrific to look at. Bingbing's features
05:46 are basically distorted beyond almost all recognition, at which point you have to even
05:50 wonder why the filmmakers bothered hiring her at all.
05:54 Despite the performance capture work, nothing about the mermaids feels rooted in a physical
05:57 reality. It all looks painstakingly hand-animated by an overworked VFX artist, and feels unmistakably
06:04 off in every single scene. This is almost certainly the aspect of the movie's post-production
06:09 which held up its release, and yet it would also shock absolutely nobody if this was the
06:13 exact same state it was in 8 years ago, as the CGI certainly doesn't look like it's
06:17 evolved beyond 2014. Or 2004, to be fair.
06:21 5. Video Gamey CGI – Uncharted
06:24 Though general audiences have responded with mild enthusiasm for the big screen adaptation
06:29 of Naughty Dog's hit video game Uncharted, the reception from fans of the games and critics
06:34 has been considerably more mixed. While on paper it might seem un-screw-uppable to adapt
06:38 a game to the big screen like this, seeing as it was itself so indebted to classic action
06:43 adventure movies like Indiana Jones, it's actually not quite so simple. Even beyond
06:47 the questionable script, mediocre performances and lacklustre direction, Uncharted is ultimately
06:52 hamstrung by its frequently garish CGI.
06:56 Right from the opening sequence, in which we glimpse Nathan Drake scrambling his way
06:59 up a cargo plane's perilously hanging luggage, there's an off-putting, ugly blurriness
07:04 to all of the effects. Never once are we convinced that we're watching anything other than
07:08 Tom Holland on a green screen set that he's just been keyed into. Ironically, it looks
07:12 less like a live-action movie and more like a video game.
07:16 Part of the problem is that Uncharted had a budget that's just not quite big enough.
07:20 Though Sony were in many ways sensible to make it for only $120 million and reduce their
07:25 financial exposure, the trade-off is that so many of the effects shots look absolutely
07:30 hideous.
07:31 4. Low Budget Animation
07:33 The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wilde
07:35 Expectations were admittedly through the floor for this new Ice Age spin-off that was recently
07:40 released to Disney+, but would it have killed billionaire conglomerate Disney to throw a
07:44 little bit more cash at this sorry production?
07:47 Beyond the fact that the Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wilde is a fundamentally unremarkable,
07:51 completely forgettable entry into the series, it doesn't even function as a basic aesthetic
07:55 pleasure because it's clear that Disney just cut corners to save what money they could.
07:59 Though the studio behind the previous Ice Age films, Blue Sky Studios, was shut down
08:03 after being acquired by Disney, did Disney really need to outsource production of this
08:07 spin-off to a small Canadian studio with little experience working on major Hollywood animations?
08:12 Evidently, the studio did the best they could, with a small crew working entirely remotely
08:16 during the pandemic on a project far outside their usual scope.
08:20 But make no bones about it, this is a shockingly ugly film.
08:24 3. The Digital Demon Effects
08:26 Studio 666
08:28 On paper, comedy horror film Studio 666 actually seemed like a lot of fun.
08:33 Here, the Foo Fighters play scarcely fictionalized versions of themselves who face off against
08:37 their demonic presence while recording their new album.
08:39 It's a fun idea that positions the movie to be a giddy homage to classic horror films
08:43 such as The Evil Dead and Halloween.
08:45 Hell, John Carpenter even helped compose the score, and even has a small cameo.
08:49 And while the Foo Fighters themselves, outside of Dave Grohl, aren't exactly the most natural
08:53 of actors and the script is basically a mess, what really sinks Studio 666 is its unfortunate
08:58 commitment to some truly wretched CGI.
09:01 Whenever the demonic entities appear on screen, the resulting elemental effects look like
09:04 terrible Adobe After Effects plugins that somebody just paid a few bucks for at most.
09:10 For a film that's mounted as a throwback to campy horror films of decades past, these
09:14 digital effects feel jarringly out of place, especially next to the movie's far more
09:18 impressive practical gore effects.
09:20 2. Digitally De-Aged Catherine Keener
09:23 The Adam Project
09:24 Netflix's new sci-fi action film The Adam Project was a mostly fun time courtesy of
09:29 its Ryan Reynolds-led cast.
09:31 With an enjoyable time travel premise and spectacular production values.
09:35 That is, except for the movie's nightmare-fueled digital de-aging of the great Catherine Keener,
09:39 who plays the film's primary antagonist, Maya.
09:42 At the end of the second act, she ends up meeting her younger self from 32 years in
09:46 the past, which is achieved through the digital de-aging technology which is becoming increasingly
09:50 common in big-budget blockbusters.
09:53 Though the Marvel Cinematic Universe has proven the mind-boggling potential of this tech,
09:57 in this case it falls massively short of the mark, looking more like a cheap deepfake that
10:01 somebody mocked up on their home computer.
10:03 It's an embarrassingly lousy job for a $160 million movie with otherwise robust visual
10:09 effects.
10:10 1. The Opening Car Chase - Kate
10:13 Netflix's recent action thriller Kate certainly benefited from the steely presence of Mary
10:17 Elizabeth Winstead as the titular assassin, though suffered immensely from both its laughably
10:22 generic script and a VFX gaffe in the opening 10 minutes so shambolic it sent audience expectations
10:28 barreling into the Earth's core.
10:29 The film's instigating set piece sees Kate get into her car for a high-speed car chase,
10:34 which for reasons which will likely never be made clear, is rendered entirely digitally.
10:39 Though the movie features some acceptable practical action later on, this opening sequence
10:43 is a hideous video-gamey mess bringing back bad memories of early 2000s CGI car chases
10:49 from the likes of 'Too Fast, Too Furious'.
10:52 It immediately obliterates any hope that Kate might actually be a good film, perhaps lowering
10:57 viewer expectations enough that they don't even really give the movie a chance or even
11:01 just turn it straight off.
11:03 It's altogether weirder when you consider that the director for this project is actually
11:06 a VFX artist who received an Oscar nomination for his work on 'Snow White and the Huntsman',
11:10 so that makes this absolutely wild.
11:13 And there we go my friends, those were 10 CGI fails that totally ruined recent movies.
11:17 I hope that you enjoyed that and please let me know what you thought about it down in
11:20 the comments section below.
11:22 As always I've been Jules, you can go follow me over on Twitter @RetroJWithA0 or you can
11:26 swing by Liv and Let's Dice where I do all my streaming outside of work and it'd be
11:29 great to see you over there my friends.
11:31 I'll speak to you soon, bye.
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