15 movies ruined by cringeworthy CGI

Computer generated imagery is a double-edged sword: it can create wonders or total disasters.

Some films use CGI very carefully to enhance practical effects, like in Mad Max: Fury Road. Other films rely very heavily on CGI, like the colorful fever dream that is The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl. CGI is an important tool that must be utilized with absolute care, and as many filmmakers have learned, poorly executed CGI can sink a movie, even if the movie has potential.

Digital effects have only improved as the years have passed. To avoid being too unfair, this list will only focus on films that are relatively recent, or ones that could have utilized more practical effects to achieve their visual goals. Not all of these films are completely meritless, but sometimes, truly ugly CGI can be hard to look past.

You’d be hard-pressed to meet someone who has never cringed in a movie theater before, but if you are somehow that person, maybe look into a few of the movies below. You may not like what you find.

Here are 15 movies ruined by cringeworthy CGI:

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15. "Hulk"

Ang Lee’s Hulk probably isn’t the worst entry on this list, but for a big-budget blockbuster starring a well-established superhero, these effects probably should have been better. Make no mistake, bad CGI isn’t this film’s only problem, but it certainly didn’t help it much.

The Hulk had been done practically before on television, with makeup and prosthetics. Naturally, this film chose to go big and give audiences what they believed would be a true adaptation of the Incredible Hulk, with a more authentic, giant-sized CGI Green Goliath. It soundes great in theory. Sadly, it may have come a little too early, as the effects just weren’t good enough. For many, this rubbery Hulk is a bit too cartoony to take seriously—and don’t even get us started about the Hulk-hounds.

CGI can be much worse, but this rendition of the Marvel hero was outdone with 2008’s The Incredible Hulk, and outdone again with his appearances in the MCU. And thankfully, Thor: Ragnarok has the Hulk looking better than ever.

14. "Tron: Legacy"

For all intents and purposes, Tron: Legacy actually looks quite good. The original Tron was ground-breaking in the special effects department, and its aesthetic needed to be both updated and recaptured in the sequel. While the world looked pretty decent, the most glaring special effects oddity came in the form of the film’s villain, Clu. With the CGI face of a young Jeff Bridges, it did not look good.

This CGI trick has been popping up more and more lately, and with each use, the de-aging effect has improved. Disney itself has used this effect quite a bit since their release of Tron: Legacy, in MCU movies like Ant-Man, Captain America: Civil War, and most recently, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. The de-aging effect has come a long way, but with this film back in 2010, it just wasn’t quite there yet. Clu looked rubbery, unnatural, and completely distracting. The movie itself was met with mixed reception anyway, but CGI Jeff Bridges did nothing to improve the film’s quality.

13. "The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies"

The Battle of the Five Armies doesn’t feature flat-out awful CGI, so much as overwhelmingly mediocre CGI. This is only made worse by the fact that the original Lord of the Rings trilogy is littered with beautiful practical effects that still hold up today. It’s a shame that this franchise—one that looked breathtaking only a decade prior—took so many steps backward with its prequel trilogy.

So much of the makeup, costumes, prosthetics, and sets of the original trilogy have been replaced with green screens and CGI. While it isn’t all bad, the locations lack visual depth, some characters look way too bouncy in action, and the armies themselves look so fake that the battle lacks any real emotional affect. It took a lot of work to make those original films look so real, and not repeating those painfully difficult endeavors is completely understandable. It’s just hard to go from the jaw-dropping battle of Helm’s Deep to the mushy gray chaos that is the third act of this film.