10 Worst Movie CGI Of 2021

3. Emily Rides Clifford - Clifford The Big Red Dog

Space Jam A New Legacy Don Cheadle
Paramount Pictures

The success of Clifford the Big Red Dog was extremely reliant on younger audiences being convinced by its CGI representation of a giant red dog, and though the film generally works in that regard, captive adult audiences likely found themselves wincing at some of the movie's jankier VFX.

While the early scenes where young Emily (Darby Camp) is interacting with Clifford in his smaller form don't quite convince - Emily's hands often clip right through Clifford's digital fur - things get truly unwieldly in the film's epic climax.

As Emily rides a giant Clifford through New York, it's hilariously obvious we're watching a crude digital marionette of Emily sat atop Clifford.

Clifford himself looks pretty great, but seeing an overly smooth, uncanny valley little girl flailing around on top of him proves immediately immersion-breaking.

Would it really have been that hard to just have the young actress riding a fake dog prop against a green screen, rather than create a terrible CGI model of her totally from scratch? Yikes.

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Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes). General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.