Top 10 Dumbest Uses of CGI in Movies

“Halloween H20: 20 Years Later” (1998)

When CGI attempts to replicate the look of real human faces it can fall short and look a bit shoddy. This was really apparent in 1998’s “Halloween H20: 20 Years Later”, when CGI was still experiencing growing pains. Although the “Halloween” franchise started with a practical mask in 1978, everything changed in 1998 upon the advent of special effects. There’s a scene in “Halloween H20” when Michael is rocking a CGI mask that looks absolutely horrific. The worst part is not how it looks, but how unnecessary it was to include it for only one scene. A Michael Myers mask from the local costume shop would have looked 100% better than this. Buying one would’ve been significantly easier and presumably cheaper than utilizing CGI.

“The Social Network” (2010)

There’s one scene in David Fincher’s “The Social Network” that sees Mark and Eduardo standing outside in the freezing cold while discussing ideas for Facebook. It’s a good scene with great dialogue that’s ruined by CGI breath clouds. Fincher has stated that, “to ask people to stand out in this kind of cold weather and not see the breath was unfair.” While it’s noble of him to try to go for accuracy, the breath is still wildly unnecessary. Audiences understand that it’s freezing, as Eduardo is jumping around and commenting on how cold he is. We don’t think anyone would have complained about the lack of visible breath. In fact, it’s likely that no one would have even noticed.

“Daredevil” (2003)

The 2003 “Daredevil” film is not loved by many, and its questionable filmmaking is evident in the very first seconds. One of the first things audiences see is a shoddy digital rat scamper around the wet streets before it’s scared away by a burst of steam. Couldn't they have just opened the movie in another way to save both money and the film’s reputation? They could have filmed a live rat and just cut out the steam part. Or they could have just started with the slow pan up the stairs instead of bothering with a rodent at all. Something could have been done to prevent audiences from watching such an insignificant piece of digital imagery in a superhero movie.

“Green Lantern” (2011)

CGI masks didn’t get any better between 1998 and 2011. In “Green Lantern”, Blake Lively’s Carol Ferris asks, (insert broll:“What the hell is with that mask?”) If that was meant to be a brilliant bit of meta-comedy, then well done, because that’s exactly what audiences were thinking while looking at the atrocity. The movie was widely lambasted for its poor visual effects, and that includes Green Lantern’s digital mask. It’s overly digitized and completely unnatural when it appears on Hal’s face. While Reynolds initially defended the use of otherworldly CGI, he later joined the rest of the world and ridiculed the terrible special effects himself.

“X-Men Origins: Wolverine” (2009)

Standing as one of the worst films in the entire “X-Men” canon, this origin story received significant criticism for its script and poor visual effects. Perhaps the movie’s most infamous scene shows Wolverine trying out his new adamantium claws in a bathroom mirror. The effects look like something out of an amateur B-movie rather than one that cost $150 million. The filmmakers reportedly utilized prosthetic claws while shooting. However, they replaced them in post-production with CGI. Even the first movie’s claws look marginally better, and that was released almost ten years prior. It’s obviously hard to convey steel claws in a realistic manner, but surely something could have been done to prevent this disaster.

“Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones” (2002)


The “Star Wars” prequels are infamous for their over reliance on CGI. Both the green screens and horrid effects made the original ‘70s and ‘80s films look more modern than the prequels. Perhaps the worst offender is the infamous pear sequence from “Attack of the Clones”. The pear looks mindboggingly bad and gets worse whenever it interacts with the live actors. We don’t believe for a second that either Hayden Christensen or Natalie Portman are interacting with fruit. The team could have used a real pear on a string, or even just cut out the goofy sequence all together. Was it really necessary for them to use a CGI pear while sitting down to eat?

“John Wick” (2014)

It’s a weird day indeed when you show up to work and learn that you’ll be animating a pile of curling dog poop. But a team fulfilled that strange request for the modern classic “John Wick”. While the movie is an impeccably made bit of action cinema, it contains a wholly unnecessary shot of a dog’s recently deposited, uh, deposit. This wasn’t needed for the story or character, so why even include it? According to the DVD commentary, the filmmakers couldn’t just wait around for the dog to do its business. So they resorted to CGI. Since this single shot reportedly cost the studio $5,000 in animation and labor, it’s one of the most expensive poops in human history.

“Justice League” (2017)

The story of Henry Cavill’s mustache is now ingrained in film history. He originally grew a thick mustache for his role in “Mission: Impossible – Fallout”. During filming, Warner Bros. needed him to play the clean shaven Superman for “Justice League” reshoots. But he couldn’t get rid of the facial hair. After a failed compromise between the two movie productions, Warner Bros. had to digitally remove Cavill’s mustache in post production. The result was a bizarre uncanny valley concoction that made Cavill appear like a just-not-right video game character. While they did what they could under regrettable circumstances, there’s no denying that the end result looks ridiculous.

“The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2” (2012)

If digitally creating a fake face proves difficult, we can only imagine how hard it would be to create an entire human being! Unfortunately, that is exactly what the visual effects artists of “Twilight” were tasked with when it came to making Renesmee. While we feel bad for laughing, she was probably one of the worst bits of CGI ever created. The baby looks absurd, and it completely takes viewers out of an otherwise emotional moment. Bill Condon even admitted to The Hollywood Reporter that the baby came out “a disaster”. They reportedly chose between using bad special effects or a creepy animatronic doll. But that only raises another question - couldn’t they have just tried filming with a real baby?

“Cats” (2019)

From its first trailer, “Cats” ran the risk of being a cinematic travesty. The movie is based on a musical that has been running since 1981. Since that time, everyone has been content with the beautiful, Tony Award-winning costumes. But the production team of “Cats” decided to go with CGI instead of practical effects. This resulted in horrific human-cat hybrids that haunted our nightmares. The genuinely terrible CGI complete with numerous glitches and imperfections forced Universal to release an updated version to theaters. All of the special effects updates and horrified reactions could’ve been avoided if the “Cats” production team made more practical costume choices.