Someone Just Fixed The Irishman's Biggest Problem
Shoddy CGI de-aging, be gone!
There’s absolutely zero doubt that Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman was one of the most hotly anticipated movies of 2019.
Headlined by Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and Joe Pesci, Scorsese’s Netflix project was dripping with legendary star power. And while some may have lambasted the 3 hour 30 minute runtime of the picture, the film stunned on a multitude of levels.
One element of the movie that maybe left a little to be desired, however, was the digital de-aging work utilised to make Messrs De Niro, Pacino, and Pesci look up to 50 years younger than their real age.
Considering that The Irishman cost over $140 million to make, you have to imagine a good chunk of change was spent on making the film’s key trio look as authentic as possible as their story played out over half a decade.
Despite the budget afforded to this Netflix offering, the end result was somewhat of a mixed bag. Throughout The Irishman, there’s often times where the audience simply has to put some awful CGI to one side in order to appreciate the film’s story.
What’s more embarrassing for The Irishman right now, is that a YouTube user by the name of iFake has managed to do a far better job of de-aging Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and Joe Pesci than the team behind The Irishman’s digital work could muster up.
According to iFake, this stunning deepfake job took only seven days and was done using completely free software called DeepFaceLab.
The Irishman was a triumph on so many levels, but you really have to question just what the digital FX team were doing to get such a so-so end result with their de-aging work.