10 Recent Movies That Grossly Overestimated What Their CGI Could Do

1. The Predator

Shane Black's The Predator is, to be kind, a big 'ol mess, a confused, tonally jarring car crash of ideas that don't really work, yet what disappoints more than anything is the fact that the $160 million production vomits up a repulsive CGI Predator for the heroes to face.

Though the Predator franchise has always been supported by visual effects, this is the only entry where those effects actively felt like a detriment to the end product.

With Black and Fox trying to soft-reboot Predator as a tentpole franchise, the film is awash in a greater abundance of CGI, and in the interest of making a Bigger, Better Sequel, the hybrid upgrade Predator of course has to be an 11-foot-tall VFX behemoth.

Yet the creature has depressingly little convincing presence throughout Black's film, shot in low lighting conditions for the most part in order to hide how utterly vile it looks (and not in a good way).

This culminates in an outrageously sloppy third act finale, which was in fact cobbled together in late-day reshoots.

As a result, both the "ultimate" Predator and most of the CGI-fuelled action is an eyesore, and it's clear that Black should've just hired a basketball player to play a 7-8 foot Predator instead.

Given that the fanbase for this franchise skews a little older, they're really not in the market for excessive CGI beasties when a tangible monster would've done the job splendidly.