10 Worst Movie CGI Of 2021
6. Shang-Chi Rides The Great Protector - Shang-Chi & The Legend Of The Ten Rings
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is an incredibly handsome movie for the most part, though like so many MCU films also can't resist indulging a full-on CGI overload in its third act.
The climax comes down to Shang-Chi (Simu Liu) riding a dragon, the Great Protector, while it battles another dragon, the evil Dweller-in-Darkness.
Though the dragon-on-dragon fighting looks decent enough, the attempts to integrate humans into the mix - namely Shang-Chi and his sister Xialing (Meng'er Zhang) - look shamefully shoddy.
It's immediately reminiscent of Game of Thrones, which proved throughout its run how difficult it is to convincingly place live-action humans atop gigantic flying creatures like dragons.
Their movements are so fast and varied that it's near-impossible to match the live-action performance to the digital chaos, and as such it ends up looking incredibly silly most of the time.
In the case of Shang-Chi, any close-up shots of Shang-Chi and his sister look strangely distorted, as it's clear the live-action plate has been awkwardly blurred and manipulated to try and blend in with the CGI dragon.
It's a disappointing distraction in a film which, up until its third act, deployed VFX in a more sensibly sparing way compared to most MCU movies.