4. Overuse of CGI
Following on from the above, Wiseman further over-exerts himself from a stylistic perspective by glossing just about every shot in this film in some sort of visual effect, be it a lens flare or a floating hover-car. Now, we're not going to knock the hover-car sequence too much, because it was probably the most entertaining set-piece in the film, but Wiseman's reliance on CGI reaches an exhausting, tiresome, even boring apex by film's end; the various explosions and crashes feel overly mechanical and have no emotional or visceral impact. Compare this to the original film, which employed stunning practical effects for the large part, and is as a result much more impressive for the startling result that these effects created. Like too many sci-fi films these days, filmmakers think that rendering shiny, bright objects is sufficient for depicting the sleek, technologically advanced future, but rather, it better resembles a current-gen video game than anything approaching progress. While it would be immature and churlish to decry CGI as anything but progress, it's all about how you use it, and here it feels synthetic and lifeless.