Few movies have generated as much confusion over their visual effects as Cats. The fantasy film, based on the classic musical, digitally transformed its human actors into rather unsettling feline versions of themselves using its infamous "digital fur technology". The result was some truly bizarre-looking characters that, to this day, remain the only thing most people ever mention when talking about the film. | © Universal Pictures
The Mummy Returns may be remembered fondly today, but the CGI applied to Dwayne Johnson's Scorpion King is difficult to defend. It was painful to watch his digitally created appearance during the climactic battle, which looks remarkably unfinished. It felt like a stain on what was otherwise a really entertaining action-adventure film. | © Universal Pictures
Justice League became notorious for its sweeping visual effects issues. Steppenwolf's CGI was widely criticized, while Henry Cavill's digitally removed mustache is the subject of repeated mockery. The superhero film reportedly faced rushed reshoots and tight deadlines, which contributed to poor digital effects. Still, a movie with a $300 million production should be doing better. | © Warner Bros. Pictures / DC Films
It's hard to make a list of terrible CGI without mentioning Birdemic: Shock and Terror. The killer birds in this 2010 film are deliberately simple creations, but their stiff movements and crude animation have become a part of its notorious appeal. You would be forgiven for thinking this film was released in the '80s or '90s, given how awful the movie is as a whole. | © Moviehead Pictures
Van Helsing should receive credit for fully embracing its over-the-top monster aesthetic, but some of its effects haven't aged gracefully since its 2004 release. The CGI effect applied to its werewolves and supernatural creatures can look surprisingly artificial and cartoony compared to the film's practical sets and costumes. | © Universal Pictures / Sommers Company
The first Sharknado had a ridiculous premise that demanded plenty of digital sharks, and it was clear the film was not aiming for Hollywood-level effects. The CGI creatures' awkward movements and compositing often made the movie look incredibly cheap, but it's these terrible effects that have grown to be a part of the franchise's appeal. | © The Asylum / Syfy Films
The long-running James Bond franchise is usually associated with spectacular practical stunts, so it came as a surprise that Die Another Day leaned heavily into CGI for several sequences. The digitally enhanced surfing scene is particularly notorious, as the artificial waves and physics make the action look more like a video game than an actual 007 movie. | © Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Ryan Reynolds' Green Lantern is perhaps best remembered for its questionable Green Lantern suit. Instead of having a practical costume, a fully animated digital suit was used. This alone sparked division, as it appears unnatural and somewhat cartoonish. On top of that, the giant CGI villain Parallax looks like a hulking mess. | © Warner Bros. Pictures / DC Entertainment
Foodfight is widely considered one of the worst-animated films ever made. The characters and environments have a strangely unfinished appearance, and the character models don't appear to have any texture. Some viewers have likened the comedy film to an abandoned video game project. | © Threshold Animation Studios
Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, the sequel to 1997's Mortal Kombat, attempted to increase the scale of its fantasy action, but it lacked the effects budget to match its ambitions. The resulting CGI creatures and transformations were unpolished and extremely underwhelming. | © New Line Cinema
By today's standards, Spawn's digital effects are unbelievably rough. The CGI Violator and the rest of the film's supernatural effects were bold for the time, but now they look terrible. This was no doubt, at least partially, due to the film's rushed post-production process, which meant effects artists could not do the CGI justice. | © New Line Cinema
The Flash had a huge visual-effects budget, but that didn't stop some of its CGI from becoming one of the movie's biggest failures. The digital effects, especially the de-aging of Michael Keaton's Batman, have an uncanny, unfinished quality that made some of the film's biggest moments unintentionally distracting. | © Warner Bros. Pictures / DC Films
The Lawnmower Man was actually quite ambitious for its time, as it used computer-generated imagery to create its virtual-reality sequences. Unfortunately, what was cutting-edge in the early '90s now looks extremely primitive. The film's blocky environments and simplistic digital effects certainly haven't aged gracefully. | © Fuji Eight Company Ltd. / New Line Cinema
The Quantum Realm in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania presented an opportunity for Marvel's visual-effects teams to go all out. Unfortunately, the finished movie didn't live up to the hype. It was heavily criticized for effects that sometimes looked unfinished. The digital environments and creatures have a distinctly artificial appearance, with MODOK's bizarre CGI face becoming one of the movie's most mocked elements. | © Marvel Studios
Jaws 3-D was produced with the well-meaning intention of making its shark look more impressive in three dimensions. Sadly, the effect hasn't aged particularly well. The mechanical shark frequently looks fake, and several of the movie's 3-D elements are noticeably dated even by the standards of early-'80s filmmaking. At certain points, it looked like someone had pasted a sticker of the creature on the screen. | © Universal Pictures
Computer-generated imagery, better known as CGI, can transform movies into spectacular worlds filled with extraordinary creatures and locations. But it can have the opposite effect when they don't hit the mark. There are plenty of films who've become known for their awful CGI. That said, we'll be showing you 15 of these movies whose CGI left audiences scratching their heads.
