Computer imagery has been a major part of blockbuster movies since the 80s, and, for a few decades, it just kept getting better. By the time the first Iron Man hit theaters, the CG was so glossy and seamless that you could mistake it for real life! Lately, though, CGI has looked awful in a lot of movies. Here are ten modern movies with CGI that looks worse than what we saw 15 years ago.
Wonder Woman
The 2017 DC outing Wonder Woman is a great movie with a moving storyline, awesome performances, and a stellar score. It’s also visually stunning… except for its final battle between Diana and Ares. That muddy, awful CG mess is a genuine eyesore and the worse thing in the movie.
Black Panther
Chadwick Boseman’s historic outing as T’Challa was a huge moment for the Marvel Cinematic Universe and for black comic book fans everywhere. It was also, sadly, plagued with some very muddy CG and overuse of motion blur to hide unfinished effects. This is was mainly evident in the third act’s final battle, as is standard for modern superhero movies.
Justice League
Joss Whedon’s theatrical cut of Justice League is one of the worst movies ever made, and that extends to its garish CGI. One infamous scene has Superman talking to a few kids he’s recently rescued while his mouth looks like an eldritch abomination. This egregious scene exists because Whedon needed to reshoot star Henry Cavill, who had grown out a mustache he was contractually not allowed to shave for a role in a different movie.
Skyscraper
Dwayne Johnson has starred in his fair share of genuinely awful movies, and Skyscraper is one of them. Part of what makes this boring, bland movie so unwatchable is its ugly overuse of CGI for scenes from high rise skyscrapers. If you can’t get practical shots for at least a few scenes, why even make a movie called Skyscraper?
Thor: Love and Thunder
Thor: Love and Thunder is a rare comic book movie that is somehow less than the sum of its parts. Chris Hemsworth and Natalie Portman have great chemistry on-screen. Christian Bale is properly menacing as Gorr the God-Butcher. Some of the scenes even look really nice, like a standout black-and-white battle sequence. But largely, the film suffers from cheap-looking, plastic-y CGI and the new Marvel staple of unfinished computer effects.
Black Adam
We’re not purposefully trying to single out Dwayne Johnson here, the man has just starred in so many bad movies that he’s bound to come up on these lists. Black Adam was another abjectly terrible DC outing that was bogged down by a “who cares” plot and some truly amateurish CGI. The title character’s CG body double looked worse than video game graphics from the PlayStation 2 era.
Cats
The 2019 film Cats is an adaptation of the utterly bizarre musical of the same name. It’s also an outright foul-looking movie with some unforgivably ugly CGI. It was controversial upon release due to the obviously unfinished nature of the visual effects, with the actors’ normal human hands still visible instead of having cat’s paws. Come on, Universal, get it together.
Jurassic World Dominion
Speaking of Universal phoning it in with the visual effects, it’s baffling that Jurassic World Dominion (2022) has worse visual effects than Jurassic Park (1993). Nearly 30 years of advancement in computer technology couldn’t help with Chris Pratt-led monstrosity get digital dinosaurs with proper lighting or textures that looked good with a snowy background. Genuinely embarrassing stuff.
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The Flash
The Flash was cursed from the outset, with its lead star Ezra Miller mired in their own whirlwind of legal issues. Adding insult to injury for DC, the movie featured an unsettling visual effect for the title character’s super speed power that rendered nearby humans rubbery and shiny. The effect looks so bad that fans reasoned it was unintentional, which led to the film’s creative team insisting it was on purpose. They should have taken the easy way out and just said it was unfinished instead of taking credit for that eyesore.
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Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania
The single worst entry in the MCU (so far) and the ugliest Hollywood blockbuster ever made is easily Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania. How some of these blurry, out-of-focus CGI shots made it through postproduction is a genuine mystery. This one will be remembered as the straw that broke the camel’s back and made general audiences stop viewing the Marvel Studios branding as a seal of quality.
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