10 2010s Movies With the Worst CGI, Ranked

CGI has been around for decades but it’s only really in the last few years that it’s become consistently convincing. Even then, it generally requires a ton of money and meticulous effort to look believable and immersive. While the technique seems to offer a quick fix for many filmmakers, it’s usually a poisoned chalice, just as likely to butcher a movie as improve it.

As a result, there are plenty of movies out there with atrocious CGI. Even in the 2010s, when CGI technology was fairly advanced and well-established, movies continued to produce nightmare fuel and slop with it. With this in mind, this list looks at some of the most egregious offenders. From horror remakes to ambitious superhero sagas, these films span various genres but are united by their visual incompetence. In some cases, shoddy graphics undermined the whole movie.

10

‘Mama’ (2013)

Directed by Andy Muschietti

“A ghost is an emotion bent out of shape, condemned to repeat itself time and time again.” This one tells the eerie tale of two young sisters, Victoria (Megan Charpentier) and Lilly (Isabelle Nélisse), who are abandoned in a forest cabin and cared for by a supernatural entity they call “Mama”, which later follows them to their new home. It’s a decent movie anchored by believable performances, but the CGI of the titular monster is a complete mess. It looks like something out of a B-tier video game.

Mama’s cheap appearance undercuts much of the tension, making one wonder why director Andy Muschietti opted to show it on-screen for so long. The creature’s shrieks and roars are also pretty lame, like something out of a bargain bin of stock sound effects. Given the $15m budget, Mama should have been way scarier. Still, the movie was a massive hit, bringing in a whopping $148m.

9

‘The Thing’ (2011)

Directed by Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.

“It’s not dead yet.” This soulless prequel/remake of John Carpenter‘s 1982 classic totally abandons the practical spirit of the original, leaning into bland CGI rather than puppetry and animatronics. Needless to say, this approach did not go down well with fans. Story-wise, Mary Elizabeth Winstead leads the cast as paleontologist Kate Lloyd, who joins a Norwegian research team that uncovers a crashed extraterrestrial spacecraft. While the plot borrows beats from the original, it can’t come close in terms of the visuals or creature design. The monster here is incredibly underwhelming.

There are a few scenes here where the shapeshifter looks truly abysmal; somehow both boring and fake. Some of the designs also rip off Alien way too much (like the lamprey-like face-hugging form and a pseudo-chestburster), producing scares that audiences have seen a hundred times before. Sure, the visuals are not completely trashy and incompetent, but they are far below what one would expect from a movie of this caliber.

8

‘Justice League’ (2017)

Directed by Zack Snyder

“Do you bleed?” The controversial Justice League sees DC’s heroes assembling to confront the looming threat posed by Steppenwolf (Ciarán Hinds) and his army of Parademons. There was a lot of potential here, but the finished product is a mess of narrative missteps and pointless special effects. Zack Snyder is usually known for good VFX, but some of the visuals in this movie are weird and uncanny, like Superman’s (Henry Cavill) CGI mouth and, well, Steppenwolf’s entire appearance.

Some of the shots of the character’s capes also look ridiculously, plasticky and unrealistic. How hard is it to animate a cape? The budget was $300m! These problems probably stemmed from the film’s rushed production schedule, including various reshoots and a change in directors, as well as the apathy of the executives at Warner Bros. The company doesn’t seem to have put much actual care into this project, in contrast to the way Marvel approached The Avengers, for example.

7

‘Battleship’ (2012)

Directed by Peter Berg

“You’re gonna sink my battleship.” Inspired by the classic board game, Battleship follows Lieutenant Alex Hopper (Taylor Kitsch) as he leads a naval fleet against an alien invasion during a multinational naval exercise. It could have been fun, but it’s instead a slog of cliched dialogue, lackluster storytelling, and heavy-handed CGI. The aliens look awful, landing awkwardly between serious and cheesy. It’s hard to tell if they’re meant to be a joke or not.

The cast and crew seem to go for CGI spectacle over actual story, but the visuals just aren’t strong enough to carry the movie. Plus, the idea of throwing sci-fi into a boardgame based on World War II was just weird, making Battleship an all-around awkward and unnecessary affair. There’s a reason few people even talk about this movie these days. It’s rough when you’re being outclassed by the likes of Werewolves Within and Jumanji.

6

‘Green Lantern’ (2011)

Directed by Martin Campbell

“In brightest day, in blackest night, no evil shall escape my sight.” DC strikes again with Green Lantern. This dysfunctional star vehicle features Ryan Reynolds as Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds), a cocky test pilot who unexpectedly becomes the first human member of the Green Lantern Corps. The movie leans heavily on its graphics, many of which are lame and undercooked. So much of it is garish and cartoonish, at odds with the tone of the rest of the movie. The hero’s costume, in particular, looks unignorably bad.

The 3D didn’t help matters, making the weak CGI even more noticeable – and distracting. The visuals are just one of many issues in this flop of a blockbuster, along with shoddy writing and head-scratching deviations from the source material. “The film did not work, really,” director Martin Campbell (The Legend of Zorro, Casino Royale) has admitted. “Superhero movies are not my cup of tea.”

5

‘The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2’ (2012)

Directed by Bill Condon

“Now you know, nobody’s ever loved anybody as much as I love you.” In the final Twilight flick, Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) fully embraces her life as a vampire while raising her hybrid daughter Renesmee with Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson). There are a lot of weird elements in this movie, like Jacob (Taylor Lautner) “imprinting” on Bella and Edward’s kid, and the generally odd visuals, including some CGI that looks very shaky for a move that cost $136m to make.

Many viewers and critics ridiculed the graphics, particularly the bizarro look of the Cullens’ baby. Renesmee is very unsettling, more like something out of a horror movie. Believe it or not, this was actually the revised version of the character. The original’s appearance was reportedly way worse. As if the baby wasn’t enough, there are also jerky, uncomfortable fight scenes and shots of characters running around awkwardly. The scene where Bella hunts through the forest is especially atrocious, with the backgrounds clearly looking like green screens.

4

‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’ (2010)

Directed by Samuel Bayer

“Did you know that after the heart stops beating, the brain keeps functioning for well over seven minutes?” The original Nightmare on Elm Street still looks great today, but the same cannot be said for the tepid 2010 remake. As usual, it’s about a group of teenagers haunted in their dreams by the spectral Freddy Krueger (Jackie Earle Haley). Unfortunately, over-the-top digital kill scenes and generally weak effects make this movie more disposable than disturbing.

Some of the computer-generated shots of Freddie coming through walls are complete duds. The original movie used Spandex to achieve the same make with more realism and at less cost. The movie recreates a lot of moments from the original film in this way, almost always watering them down and make them worse. It goes to show that ingenuity often trumps money when it comes to immersive visuals. Not for nothing, Robert Englund, the original Freddie actor, panned the movie, throwing particular shade at the lackluster makeup effects.

3

‘Sharknado’ (2013)

Directed by Anthony C. Ferrante

“We’re gonna need a bigger chopper!” Sharknado is a bit of a different entry on this list in that’s visual woefulness is by design (mostly). This disaster flick fully embraces its absurd premise of tornadoes filled with ravenous sharks wreaking havoc on Los Angeles. Unrealistic sharks fly through the air, attacking everything in sight, looking like something out of Ed Wood‘s wildest fever dreams. The tornadoes barely rise above the level of MS Paint, and the movie makes almost no attempt to hide its use of green screen.

Still, this is precisely its charm and why Sharknado became a cult movie. The atrociousness of the visuals adds to the hilarity, with characters taking on obviously fake sharks and the actors struggling to keep a straight face. As star Tara Reid says: “It is silly […] You can’t take it so seriously when it’s absolutely the sharks flying in the sky.” Unfortunately, the overly self-conscious sequels offered diminishing returns.

2

‘Cats’ (2019)

Directed by Tom Hooper

“A cat is not a dog.” While Sharknado‘s trashy CGI was ironically enjoyable, the bad visuals in Cats only make the movie worse. This disastrous musical adaptation attempts to bring to life the whimsical world of the anthropomorphic Jellicle cats, but the end result is more like nightmare fuel. The characters are ‘uncanny valley’ hybrids of human and feline, with unsettling faces and creepy bodies. Their sizes are also inconsistent, and they clash with the similarly low-quality environments around them.

The CGI is not simply weak but actively flawed, with many visual glitches making it into the theatrical, like Judi Dench‘s character having the wrong number of fingers. The backlash against the CGI was so severe that the studio released an updated version of the film with “improved” effects, though this did little to salvage its reputation. It remains one of the most derided films of the 2010s. It’s genuinely amazing that so much went so wrong with this movie, especially given the big names in the cast and crew.

1

‘Birdemic: Shock and Terror’ (2010)

Directed by James Nguyen

“It’s not just birds. It’s global warming.” Claiming the top spot on this list is the disasterpiece Birdemic: Shock and Terror, often cited as one of the worst films ever made. It’s 93 minutes of avian mayhem, with the heroes fighting back against a sudden onslaught of murderous birds caused by global warming. It’s like if The Birds had been directed by Tommy Wiseau rather than Alfred Hitchcock. The CGI birds are the film’s most infamous feature, resembling poorly animated clipart that awkwardly flaps and hovers on-screen.

As with Sharknado, Birdemic‘s incompetence earned it a devoted fanbase, even if the movies that followed weren’t as fun. But while the film’s defenders may call it ‘so bad it’s good’, there’s no denying that these are some of the absolute worst visuals of the 21st century. It would’ve been shocking in 1960, let alone 2010. The writing and performances are little better, making Birdemic a true icon of awfulness.

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