Top 10 Worst CGI Of The 2000s
#10: Surfing the Herd “Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones” (2002)
“Star Wars” has a long history with shoddy CGI. The CG additions to the original “Star Wars” were unforgivable, and the digital effects throughout “Attack of the Clones” are subpar at best. This, despite the movie’s $115 million budget! Having a bit of fun on Naboo, Anakin decides to surf on some poor creatures. The entire scene looks silly, from the obviously digital surroundings to the poorly rendered creatures themselves. Anakin himself also looks awful - particularly when he falls off the beast. This is supposed to be a cute scene, but it’s completely ruined by the comical graphics.
#9: Mary Jane’s Monster Face “Scooby-Doo” (2002)
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Much of this movie looks second-rate, from the purple monsters to Scoob himself. But, maybe that’s all part of the cartoonish charm. Either way, we can’t forgive Mary Jane’s demon face. In one of the movie’s more infamous scenes, Mary Jane is riding on an ATV when she smacks her head on a branch. She then turns to Scooby and reveals her true monstrous nature with large green eyes, stretching her skin out unnaturally. It looks… positively low-grade. Our 10-year-old selves probably didn’t notice the terrible quality, but it still detracts from what could have been a very scary and effective sequence.
#8: The Burly Brawl “The Matrix Reloaded” (2003)
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Overall, this is a funny movie. Some of the action sequences, like the freeway chase, look spectacular. And, some of them, like the Burly Brawl, look horrendous. The Burly Brawl is a fun idea in execution, as Neo fights hundreds of Agent Smiths and commits various superhuman feats along the way, but the entire thing looks like a cutscene from a PS2 video game. The character models are really disappointing; they lack detail and move around with janky CG physics. There’s also no sense of reality - it’s just digital beings fighting each other, and it couldn’t be more obvious. And no, it’s not because they’re in the Matrix. That’s just an excuse.
#7: The Creatures “A Sound of Thunder” (2005)
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This sci-fi movie came and went without much fanfare, and its visual effects especially garnered ire from critics. The movie is based on Ray Bradbury’s short story, which follows a group of adventurers as they travel back in time to hunt dinosaurs. Things like this nearly always work better as literature. Unless you’re Spielberg or something, it’s very hard to pull off dinosaurs on film. The creatures throughout “A Sound of Thunder” are embarrassing, and they do absolutely nothing to scare or amaze us. The movie was supposedly released with unfinished visuals, and that goes a long way in explaining their clumsy nature. It also had a budget of $80 million, yet we’ve seen student films that look better.
#6: The Deer “The Ring Two” (2005)
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Even by “The Ring” standards, this scene is weird. In the movie’s most bizarre sequence, Rachel and Aidan are accosted by a group of angry deer, who proceed to batter the car. It’s a bit of an odd idea in theory, but it’s made even worse by the unsatisfactory deer CGI on display. They lack a certain amount of detail, and they all have that signature digital sheen. The lighting is also way off throughout most of the sequence, causing Bambi and the crew to stand out in an unnatural fashion from the surrounding environment. CG humans and animals rarely work, and “The Ring Two” proves it rather hilariously.
#5: Surfing the Tidal Wave “Die Another Day” (2002)
By “Die Another Day,” the James Bond franchise had reached its logically outrageous conclusion, and it was high time for a reboot. Scenes like Bond surfing a massive tidal wave after a glacier is melted by a mirror satellite was just a little too absurd for some. It doesn’t help that the CGI is downright hideous. Nothing about this scene looks good. Not the water, not the ice, not the surfing Bond, and certainly not the shoddy green screen work. The team got a little too reliant on CG this go around, and it nearly killed the franchise.
#4: The Anaconda “Anaconda 3: Offspring” (2008)
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The third film in this franchise aired on the Sci-Fi Channel and starred David Hasselhoff. Even by our low expectations, “Anaconda 3” failed to deliver. The network has come a long way since 2008, when their small budgets resulted in some terrbily poor visual effects. The anaconda in this film is not only ghastly, but it somehow looks worse than the original “Anaconda” which was released over a decade earlier. Absolutely nothing about it works, and the janky CG turns the snake scenes from frightening to ridiculous. Of course, this is the Sci-Fi Channel, so the lousy effects are all part of the B-movie charm.
#3: Wolverine’s Claws “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” (2009)
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Why fix what isn’t broken? They had Wolverine’s claws down pat since 2000, which is when the first “X-Men” was released to critical acclaim. Nearly one decade later, we got…this. In the movie’s most infamous scene, Wolverine examines his claws in a bathroom. And we’re not exaggerating when we say that it looks like a fan-made video. Not only are the claws way too big, but the CGI looks like something out of the ‘90s, not 2009. Perhaps the worst part is how they don’t even come out of Wolverine’s hands in a believable manner. They’ve clearly just been copied and pasted over Hugh Jackman, and it inspires much laughter and head-shaking. Seriously, the sparks? Come on!
#2: The Freddy Caterpillar “Freddy vs. Jason” (2003)
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Freddy Krueger will do anything to get his victims. Including, uh, turning into a hookah-smoking caterpillar? Or something? To be honest, we don’t really know what this thing is. But we do know that it looks terrible. Freddy is a comical horror villain, and this goofy little caterpillar is a lot of fun. It’s just too bad that it looks so lousy. The caterpillar looks especially egregious when sharing the screen with actor Kyle Labine. He does what he can acting alongside, well, nothing, but it just doesn’t work. Then again, for a slasher from 2003 with a $30 million budget, we’re not really expecting any miracles.
#1: The Scorpion King “The Mummy Returns” (2001)
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And here we have it. The King (pun very much intended) of bad CGI. This scene has been memed and mocked for years, and for good reason. The Scorpion King’s entrance should be a moment of amazement. Instead, it became a total laughing stock. We might give the body a pass, but everything falls apart when you see the Scorpion King’s face. Digitally recreating real people is never a good idea - especially if the technology in question is from 2001. Dwayne Johnson’s CG face looks both inhuman and lamentable, and it completely ruins an otherwise interesting character. Of course, he was still popular enough to earn a spinoff, so maybe it’s just us! On second thought, never mind. It’s definitely not just us.
