20 Recent CGI Movie Moments You Can't Unsee
Those wild CGI moments you'll never forget, for better or worse.
Even though many like to decry CGI as a blight upon modern filmmaking, it is simply a tool like any other, and virtually no Hollywood movies released today are entirely absent of VFX, even if only to clean up shots and make everything more polished pre-release.
CGI can be used diligently to improve films by fixing technical issues and of course create images that simply can't be realised practically. It can also be used in ways that'll burn themselves in your brain forever more.
This can be for better or worse, and with that in mind, these 20 recent CGI movie moments won't be forgotten by anyone who witnessed them anytime soon.
Some of them are wonky VFX gaffes you won't believe made it past quality control, while others are intentionally nightmarish and off-the-wall effects, and then there are those merely designed to baffle.
Whatever their nature, these CGI moments certainly stuck in the mind one way or another, once again proving that visual effects can be used to evoke so many feelings from moviegoers, whether that was actually the plan or not...
20. De-Aged Charlize Theron - The Old Guard 2
The Old Guard 2 was released to predominantly negative reviews, but on release weekend pretty much the only thing anyone could talk about was the baffling digital de-aging job done on Charlize Theron.
Now to be clear, this isn't typical de-aging carried out to make an actor look younger for flashback scenes, but rather it was applied to Theron's face in present-day sequences at seemingly random intervals throughout the movie.
And while many actors apparently have de-aging clauses written into their movie contracts nowadays, stipulating that they can have their wrinkles smoothed out in post-production, in this case the effect is aggressive and obvious to the point of distraction.
Subtle de-aging effects are basically "invisible," but here it just looks like they used a naff phone app filter to make Theron look "younger," ironing out her face in a way that's completely uncanny and makes it hard to pay attention to anything she's actually doing on-screen.
There's no denying that Hollywood isn't a particularly welcoming place for middle-aged actresses, but in this instance the CGI de-aging just wasn't up to par, and it's baffling that Netflix let it out the door in such a blatantly unsatisfactory state.