Deepfake Catherine Keener ruined The Adam Project's third act.
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00:00So, CGI is everywhere in movies these days.
00:04All but the most low-budget of films will use visual effects for a multitude of reasons,
00:08but all are in an attempt to elevate their production in one way or another.
00:11But the examples that we're looking at today, well, they dragged entire projects down.
00:16So let's take a look at them as I'm Jules, this is WhatCulture.com, and these are 10
00:20CGI fails that totally ruined recent movies.
00:2310.
00:24All the goofy analyst effects
00:26The Matrix Resurrections
00:28The Matrix Resurrections is one of the most confounding movies of the last year, an ambitious
00:33swing and a miss for writer-director Lana Wachowski, which overreaches with its clumsy
00:38meta-commentary while also failing to deliver satisfying action sequences.
00:43There are, admittedly, several issues which prevent the action from living up to the three
00:47previous films, and the ugly digital cinematography is a major culprit.
00:52And Wachowski's clear disinterest in even trying to match, let alone top, the accomplishments
00:56of the original trilogy.
00:58But perhaps the biggest disappointment of Resurrections is that it's utterly lacking
01:01in groundbreaking visual effects moments.
01:04In an era where spectacle is commonplace, Resurrections' VFX looks dead ordinary at
01:10best, and in some cases are legitimately unpleasant.
01:14The biggest offender, by far, is the decision to deploy a visually repulsive effect on the
01:18film's villain, the analyst, during several of his scenes.
01:22For instance, when the analyst springs a bullet-time trap on Neo, the scene was shot with
01:26two cameras at the same time, each running at a different frame rate, 24 frames per second
01:31and 120 frames per second.
01:34These shots were then composited together in post-production to produce an off-kilter
01:38image that we see in the final film, which is ultimately more of a stuttery, blurry mess
01:43than a compelling, trippy look that Wachowski was presumably going for.
01:46Unlike most films on this list, it's less that the fidelity of the VFX were poor throughout
01:51than the execution being totally off, ensuring the awe-striking feeling of the first three
01:56movies was completely absent here.
01:589.
01:59The Tyrant and the Cerberus – Resident Evil, Welcome to Raccoon City
02:03Oh, Resident Evil.
02:06Fans of the video games really, really, really wanted Welcome to Raccoon City to deliver
02:10a more spirited, faithful rendition of the video game series compared to the Paul W.S.
02:15Anderson films, but the end result was a cheap, unintentionally comical, and mostly poorly
02:20acted mess.
02:21One of the defining problems was its rather low budget of $25 million, less than even
02:26the original's $33 million price tag, ensuring that the directing team was unable to render
02:31the series' iconic creatures with lavishly grotesque VFX.
02:34Instead, there's a pronounced bargain-basement quality to the film's two major digital
02:39creatures, the zombie dog known as the Cerberus and William Birkin's final mutation.
02:44Given that these are two of the game's most iconic villains, to see them look ironically
02:48like something out of a PS1 FMV was the last straw for a lot of fans, who had basically
02:53already given up on the movie.
02:55Hopefully Netflix spent a little more money on the upcoming Resident Evil TV series.
03:008.
03:01Poorly Green-Screened Fan Bing Bing – The 355
03:04The 355 is, admittedly, a pretty terrible movie any way you slice it.
03:09A migraine-inducingly boring spy thriller packed with limp action sequences, atrocious
03:14dialogue, and some weirdly awful visual effects.
03:17Many of the few people who actually bothered to watch it noted that the cast member, Fan
03:21Bing Bing, looked a little strange throughout the film, as though some sort of post-production
03:26effect was applied to her.
03:27But upon closer inspection, it appears that Bing Bing was actually green-screened into
03:31a number of the film's scenes, most distractingly during her final farewell from the rest of
03:36the team, where her personal lighting doesn't match that of the rest of the scene at all.
03:41Throughout the film, we rarely see her in shots with her fellow cast members, and it's
03:45clear that she shot a good portion of her material without them, with the VFX and editing
03:50teams tasked with incorporating it into existing footage.
03:53While we don't know exactly what went down, between the 355 undergoing extensive reshoot
03:58and Bing Bing's movements being restricted by the Chinese government due to her recent
04:02tax evasion scandal, it's possible that director Simon Kinberg simply had to make
04:06the best with her limited availability.
04:08Either way, Bing Bing looks subtly off most of the time that she's on screen, and while
04:12the audience might not know precisely why, their brain absolutely understands that something
04:16isn't right, the lighting doesn't match, and she isn't sharing a physical space with
04:20her co-stars.
04:217.
04:22That's Definitely Not Egypt – Death on the Nile
04:26To be completely fair to Kenneth Branagh's long-delayed Agatha Christie adaptation, Death
04:30on the Nile is actually a pretty fun time in terms of its frothy story and knowing performances,
04:35even though it's tough not to be constantly distracted by the rather woefully unsatisfactory
04:40VFX.
04:41The bulk of the murder-mystery plot naturally unfolds on the cruise ship, the S.S.
04:45Karnak, that's sailing down the Nile, and yet there's such a blatant artificiality
04:49to the exterior elements that it's never even remotely convincing that the film was
04:53actually shot in Egypt.
04:55Though the production originally considered filming in Egypt and then Morocco, the latter
04:59a common stand-in for the former, it was ultimately deemed too difficult, and so the entire main
05:03shoot was instead filmed on soundstages in England.
05:07A second unit did shoot some background plates in Egypt, yet whenever the cast are outside
05:11of the ship, it's painfully apparent that they're just performing in front of a green
05:14screen, which was then composited into a digital backdrop later.
05:18This is most egregiously apparent when Jackie first boards the ship in a lavish wide shot
05:23of the horizon, which looks laughably fake.
05:256.
05:26The Uncanny Valley Mermaids – The King's Daughter
05:29The plot focuses on King Louis XIV's attempts to kidnap a mermaid and steal her life force
05:34in order to ensure his own immortality.
05:36The mermaid is played through performance capture by Fan Bingbing, who seems to be rather
05:40unlucky where botched CGI is concerned according to this list, and the mermaid is, quite simply,
05:44horrific to look at.
05:46Bingbing's features are basically distorted beyond almost all recognition, at which point
05:50you have to even wonder why the filmmakers bothered hiring her at all.
05:54Despite the performance capture work, nothing about the mermaids feels rooted in a physical
05:57reality.
05:58It all looks painstakingly hand-animated by an overworked VFX artist, and feels unmistakably
06:04off in every single scene.
06:06This is almost certainly the aspect of the movie's post-production which held up its
06:10release, and yet it would also shock absolutely nobody if this was the exact same state it
06:14was in 8 years ago, as the CGI certainly doesn't look like it's evolved beyond 2014, or 2004
06:20to be fair.
06:215.
06:22Video Gamey CGI – Uncharted
06:24Though general audiences have responded with mild enthusiasm for the big screen adaptation
06:29of Naughty Dog's hit video game Uncharted, the reception from fans of the games and critics
06:34has been considerably more mixed.
06:36While on paper it might seem un-screw-uppable to adapt a game to the big screen like this,
06:40seeing as it was itself so indebted to classic action and adventure movies like Indiana Jones,
06:45it's actually not quite so simple.
06:47Even beyond the questionable script, mediocre performances and lacklustre direction, Uncharted
06:52is ultimately hamstrung by its frequently garish CGI.
06:56Right from the opening sequence, in which we glimpse Nathan Drake scrambling his way
07:00up a cargo plane's perilously hanging luggage, there's an off-putting, ugly blurriness to
07:04all of the effects.
07:06Never once are we convinced that we're watching anything other than Tom Holland on
07:09a green screen set that he's just been keyed into.
07:12Ironically, it looks less like a live action movie and more like a, well, a video game.
07:16Part of the problem is that Uncharted had a budget that's just not quite big enough.
07:20Though Sony were in many ways sensible to make it for only $120 million and reduce their
07:25financial exposure, the trade-off is that so many of the effects shots look absolutely
07:30hideous.
07:314.
07:32Low Budget Animation – The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wilde
07:36Expectations were admittedly through the floor for this new Ice Age spin-off that was recently
07:40released to Disney+, but would it have killed billionaire conglomerate Disney to throw a
07:44little bit more cash at this sorry production?
07:47Beyond the fact that The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wilde is a fundamentally unremarkable,
07:51completely forgettable entry into the series, it doesn't even function as a basic aesthetic
07:55pleasure because it's clear that Disney just cut corners to save what money they could.
07:59Though the studio behind the previous Ice Age films, Blue Sky Studios, was shut down
08:03after being acquired by Disney, did Disney really need to outsource production of this
08:07spin-off to a small Canadian studio with little experience working on major Hollywood animations?
08:12Evidently, the studio did the best they could, with a small crew working entirely remotely
08:17during the pandemic on a project far outside their usual scope.
08:20But make no bones about it, this is a shockingly ugly film.
08:243.
08:25The Digital Demon Effects – Studio 666
08:28On paper, comedy horror film Studio 666 actually seemed like a lot of fun.
08:33Here, the Foo Fighters play scarcely fictionalized versions of themselves who face off against
08:37their demonic presence while recording their new album.
08:39It's a fun idea that positions the movie to be a giddy homage to classic horror films
08:43such as The Evil Dead and Halloween – hell, John Carpenter even helped compose the score
08:47and even has a small cameo.
08:49And while the Foo Fighters themselves, outside of Dave Grohl, aren't exactly the most natural
08:53of actors and the script is basically a mess, what really sinks Studio 666 is its unfortunate
08:58commitment to some truly wretched CGI.
09:01Whenever the demonic entities appear on screen, the resulting elemental effects look like
09:05terrible Adobe After Effects plugins that somebody just paid a few bucks for at most.
09:10For a film that's mounted as a throwback to campy horror films of decades past, these
09:14digital effects feel jarringly out of place, especially next to the movie's far more
09:18impressive practical gore effects.
09:202.
09:21Digitally De-Aged Catherine Keener – The Adam Project
09:24Netflix's new sci-fi action film The Adam Project was a mostly fun time courtesy of
09:29its Ryan Reynolds-led cast.
09:31With an enjoyable time-travel premise and spectacular production values, that is except
09:36for the movie's nightmare-fueled digital de-aging of the great Catherine Keener, who
09:40plays the film's primary antagonist Maya.
09:42At the end of the second act, she ends up meeting her younger self from 32 years in
09:46the past, which is achieved through the digital de-aging technology which is becoming increasingly
09:51common in big-budget blockbusters.
09:53Though the Marvel Cinematic Universe has proven the mind-boggling potential of this tech,
09:57in this case, it falls massively short of the mark, looking more like a cheap deepfake
10:01that somebody mocked up on their home computer.
10:04It's an embarrassingly lousy job for a $160 million movie with otherwise robust visual
10:09effects.
10:101.
10:11The Opening Car Chase – Kate
10:13Netflix's recent action thriller Kate certainly benefited from the steely presence of Mary
10:18Elizabeth Winstead as the titular assassin, though suffered immensely from both its laughably
10:22generic script and a VFX gaffe in the opening ten minutes so shambolic it sent audience
10:27expectations barrelling into the Earth's core.
10:30The film's instigating set piece sees Kate get into her car for a high-speed car chase,
10:34which for reasons which will likely never be made clear, is rendered entirely digitally.
10:39Though the movie features some acceptable practical action later on, this opening sequence
10:43is a hideous video-gamey mess bringing back bad memories of early 2000s CGI car chases
10:49from the likes of Too Fast Too Furious.
10:52It immediately obliterates any hope that Kate might actually be a good film, perhaps
10:57lowering viewer expectations enough that they don't even really give the movie a chance
11:01or even just turn it straight off.
11:03It's altogether weirder when you consider that the director for this project is actually
11:06a VFX artist who received an Oscar nomination for his work on Snow White and the Huntsman,
11:11so that makes this absolutely wild.
11:13And there we go my friends, those were 10 CGI fails that totally ruined recent movies.
11:17I hope that you enjoyed that and please let me know what you thought about it down in
11:20the comments section below.
11:22As always I've been Jules, you can go follow me over on Twitter at RetroJWithA0, or you
11:26can swing by Live and Let's Dice where I do all my streaming outside of work and it'd
11:29be great to see you over there my friends, and I'll speak to you soon, bye.