Ranking Every De-aging Movie Effect Ever

After decades away from the role, Paul Reubens returned to his iconic character of Pee-wee Herman for a Netflix film in 2016. But in Reuben's own words, his biggest concern was his age, so the production implemented de-aging technology. As Reubens said;

"I feel I’m too old to be in a Pee-wee Herman movie without that, Pee-wee doesn’t work, to me, with age mixed into it. So I knew I wanted digital retouching, and that was my biggest concern from the get-go, with Judd, when it came to budgeting, because it costs a fortune. I could have had a facelift and we would have saved two million dollars."

Throughout the entire film, Reubens' face is digitally touched up. Considering Pee-wee's childlike behavior and the fact that Reubens' had originally played the role nearly forty years prior, this had to be done to keep Pee-wee being Pee-wee.

And for the most part, it works remarkably well. There are certainly moments here and there where it enter uncanny valley territory, but overall, the CGI work is minimal and Reuben's performance is all the stronger because of it.