9 Almost-Great Movie Moments Ruined By Shoddy CGI

2. The Zoo - Life Of Pi

Life Of Pi had impressive special effects, although even this Oscar winning effort showed CGI still can't better Titanic's full scale model sinking. While the integration with the real world was questionable - did anyone believe that swimming pool existed - for the most part, the animals were very impressive. Sure, on a second viewing you can tell for which shots they did and didn't use a real tiger, but for the most part you believe the modelling, chalking up any shortcomings to sticking close to Martel's descriptions.

Sadly, no matter how good the imagery was later, your suspension of disbelief was already long gone by the time Pi was shipwrecked. Assumedly the opening credits which showed us the Pondicherry Zoo was intended to be showing off the animal effects but, to me at least, it did little but showcase the limitations.

The fur was realistic and overall the movement was impressive, but there was no life behind the eyes and the general balance seemed off. It was hard to pinpoint, but I could sense what I was seeing wasn't real.

Why Ang Lee didn't decide to use real animals for the whole sequence I'll never know.