Holy shit, CGI has changed the way we
look at the world around us. Back in the 70’s if you were waiting for
the
movie to start and the bucket of popcorn grew eyes and started
dancing
around the counter top assisted by a reanimated bag of Skittles
you’d
puke in your hat and call a ventriloquist, a priest, and a burly
cop
six weeks from retirement to come deal with it. Now we can’t flip
through
the channels without seeing a seemingly living 2,000 foot robot
whipping
up a lather in his 17,000 foot shower or a muffin writhing out
of
some
bitch’s grasp as she does a walk-and-talk about menopause being a
real pisser. Superman
made us believe a man could fly but it wasn’t until The Revenge of the Sith
that we could believe that Christopher Lee had both Jedi Powers and
Phase-Shift
Parkinsons.
CGI is an amazing tool that many
filmmakers
wield like a digital Mjolnir,
creating worlds and creatures that take our breath away. Unfortunately
through
the years some have used it as a scythe, slashing our dreams and
severing
that muscle that connects our sexual pleasure organs to the
muscle
that tells our mind we’re really good at using our sexual
pleasure
organs.
The result is oblivion.
So with that we bring you CHUD’s
latest
glorious list. The twenty worst instances of CGI in movie
history.
In
no order. Well, except the order we decide to do them.
Brought to you by David Oliver
THE OFFENDER:
Die Another Day (2002)
THE
SCENE: Right after he makes his escape from the clutches of the whitest Korean in history, skipping out on death for breakfast (though, I’d grab a slice of Rosamund Pike for breakfast, lunch, dinner, midnight snack, afternoon tea…) in the process, Bond James Bond hightails it out of Reykjavik Disneyland via rocket sled while being chased by a giant death ray. Said death ray pursues him right to the brink of an ice cliff and over. In order to survive the somewhat high fall, Bond cannibalizes the parts of the sled, including the drag chute, and ends up parasailing his creaking old body (or was that the melting ice…?) out of danger in some startlingly bad synthespian-ization.
WHERE IT
ALL GOES WRONG:
From the second that Bond hops over the wave to reveal how he MacGyvered certain death into something he might do in Cabo on holiday when he wasn’t banging the local senoritas (like…all of them). Thus the final nail in the coffin of Pierce Brosnan’s tenure as Bond was wave-ridden into place. Damn shame too. Because Brosnan was the guy we wanted in the role over 15 years before. And even though I like the two Timothy Dalton outings, that six year gap between Licence to Kill and Goldeneye was the graveyard of at least two more adventures in which a younger Mr. Steele could have squeezed.
Instead, we ended up with this final outing of which Roger Moore even said “just
went too far – and that’s from me, the first Bond in space! Invisible
cars
and dodgy CGI footage? Please!.” We got a henchman without the good sense to get some diamond Clearasil, a fistfight with a bad guy in a Laser Tag display, Moneypenny wetting herself in The Matrix, and Bond rocking the stealth Aston all over Iceland. Who knows what the hell kind of havoc that thing wreaked on the local seal population?
BEEN DONE PRACTICALLY:
The Bond films have been known for decades for some of the most incredible stunts ever on film, done for real. To wit: a corkscrew jump in The Man With The Golden Gun, flying speedboats in Live and Let Die, a
Mach 1 turning a parking lot into a motocross in Diamonds Are Forever
and a semi in a gangsta lean in Licence To Kill. Now, granted, perhaps
Brosnan might have balked ever so slightly at being dangled off the edge
of a 500-foot glacier. So this particular stunt might not have been able to have been done practically. But it sure as shit didn’t need to
look like a rejected animatic from The Day After Tomorrow.
HOW BAD
IS
IT? Brosnan got fired, MGM went into bankruptcy, Lee Tamahori is arrested for soliciting oral sex in drag and now Guillermo is off the Hobbit. Coincidence?
IN
SUMMATION:
Daniel Craig. Casino Royale. No such bullshit.
