CGI Fridays...

Last night Mistress R and I started watching the new version of 'Dorian Gray', I had high hopes for it since the original film is excellent, and Colin Firth is pretty reliable (even if he does play himself in every film). But within the first ten minutes Mistress R turned to me and said, those buildings don't look very real. Those building's being Victorian London, which unless I'm very much mistaken are STILL THERE. But no, in their infinite wisdom the producers had decided to recreate the buildings with CGI, the curse of the modern film.
Don't get me wrong, CGI has it's place. Films like Shrek, Toy Story and all those other films that used to be called cartoons are perfect for it, and if it's well done it can add to sci-fi, action and horror films, but then again it can also be horrendous.
You only have to think back to the trailer for the first Mission Impossible film and Tom Cruise's hilariously ridiculous jump from helicopter to train (I think), which kind of brought back memories of the brilliantly executed 'Carry On Don't Lose Your Head' and Charles Hawtrey's chandelier leap!
Or the second US Ring film...
In the first film CGI was used brilliantly, but sparingly, but in the second.... we had several deer straight out of Shrek attacking Naomi Watts in her car.

Ring 2 was a bit shit anyway (in the first film that kid was kinda spooky, but this time he's overacting like crazy), but once I'd seen this atrocious scene, any credibility it had left went completely out the window. Still apparently they are making Ring 3D, which will be out next year. And there's another thing, 3D. What a waste of everyone's time and money. I watched The Final Destination in 3D the other day and I have to say I'd rather have just watched it normally thanks, it added precisely nothing to the experience, other than draining all the colour out of the film and making my head hurt. 

Thankfully it seems that (as Mark Kermode predicted in his latest book) the 3D fad is already starting to lose steam, and a couple of nights ago 'Producers making films in 3D' were listed among the most annoying people of 2011 in a TV show. About time too!