There are fewer spectacles more worthy of the big screen than those which come from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The sheer scale and grandeur of the MCU films (and Disney Plus TV shows, too) have captivated audiences for the better part of two decades, bringing the most ambitious events from the pages of the Marvel Comics to life in thrilling sequences, complete with non-stop action and impressive visuals.
An MCU film manages to captivate you completely with its world and characters. For a moment, you forget that people can't really turn big and green or summon a magical hammer with the power to control thunder. The superhero fantasy is brought to life ever so slightly, and everything seems so real... until a bad CGI moment comes and completely takes you out of the experience.
More and more of these immersion-breaking scenes made their way onto the big screen (and the small one too!) as the MCU grew over the years. Remember when the Iron Man armor seemed like a tangible, real suit? Yeah, it's been a while. Nowadays budgets for superhero movies are higher than ever but not even that is enough to create bullet-proof CGI that looks realistic all of the time.
So with this in mind, it is time to look at the 10 worst CGI moments in the MCU and rank them from passable to "The Rock as the Scorpion King in The Mummy Returns" (meaning: really bad).
13. Daredevil: Born Again opening sequence
There's no denying it: The very first fight in Daredevil: Born Again is nothing but exhilarating, violent, bloody, and even tragic. After a long wait, The Man Without Fear and Bullseye finally crossed paths once again on the small screen, and the result is everything we dreamt of during a six-year-long hiatus. Viewers are at the edge of their seats when watching this masterfully crafted one-shot sequence that perfectly sets the scene for the rest of the series ahead. It would be a flawless opening for a Disney Plus show... had it not been for the sub-par CGI.
Yes, there might be a little recency bias here, but it can't be denied this sequence could've looked a lot better with a little more time.
Perhaps the most distracting element in the whole fight is the digital smoke which, most of the time, wouldn't seem to react to the movements of either Daredevil or Bullseye and just obscures the fighting choreography with no particular purpose. Unlike in season 3 of Netflix's Daredevil, you can clearly tell everything Dex is throwing at his opponents is completely digital — taking away from the gripping realism we've come to expect from the series. And while it was a complete joy to finally see Daredevil using his Billy Clubs to swing across the buildings a la Spider-Man, we can't deny the VFX used to create those sequences wasn't the most polished in a Marvel project.
Unfortunately, it's clear a completely digital double briefly takes over for Matt once he and Bullseye arrive at the rooftop, and the punching animations that follow are very floaty and lack the impact of the original series. To close things out, we're treated to a shot of Daredevil's helmet falling to the ground that would be really cool on paper... had it not been for the awfully distracting VFX.
Daredevil: Born Again underwent a lot of reshoots and even a creative reboot halfway through production, so it's clear there wasn't much time to polish most of the final CGI shots. Unfortunately, the results speak for themselves, and we can't help but feel the series' opening would've benefited from a little more time in the oven.