W hen The Call of the Wild opened last week, there was a degree of bafflement around its CGI dogs. This publication called the film “refreshing”, but pointed out the “glossy vacant eyes” of its canine lead. Following Lady and the Tramp, The Lion King, and Dolittle, this is the latest in a string of films fronted by digital animals. With this much experience and a significant budget from Disney, how can a film’s CGI still under-deliver?

Cats was one of the most talked-about disasters of 2019 – especially in terms of its visual effects. Tom Hooper’s movie musical was rushed into cinemas with dubiously attached tails, Judi Dench’s visible wedding ring, and unsettling “digital fur technology”. Critics across the globe rushed to point out the errors, which only made the film feel more like a bizarre collective hallucination.

Rebel Wilson and James Corden even appeared at the Oscars in full costume, claiming that nobody knew the importance of good special effects more than them. The Visual Effects Society didn’t find the joke particularly funny.

“The best visual effects in the world will not compensate for a story told badly,” a statement from the VES read. “Our artists, technicians, and innovators deserve respect for their remarkable contributions to filmed entertainment, and should not be presented as the all-too-convenient scapegoat in service for a laugh.”

Even successes don’t necessarily mean acknowledgment or security for the VFX artists behind them, though. Sonic the Hedgehog had the highest ever box office opening for a video game movie this past week, with fans heaving sighs of relief at the speedy character’s new design.

The 27 worst film sequels of all time Show all 27 1 / 27 The 27 worst film sequels of all time The 27 worst film sequels of all time Zoolander 2 Like a reliable friend – or a movie franchise worth millions of dollars – Zoolander returned for another film. In place of a funny script and a decipherable plot, the sequel shoves in endless celebrity cameos. Skrillex, Susan Boyle and Justin Bieber are one of the 39 celebrities that appear in the film, but the force of star power fails to make Zoolander 2 enjoyable. Rex Features The 27 worst film sequels of all time I Still Know What You Did Last Summer An island getaway becomes the setting of predictable kills and lazy thrills in this sub-par slasher. Jennifer Love Hewitt, haunted by the events of the first film, leads a cast running for their lives. The implausibly gullible teen characters still scream, the red herrings are still obvious, and we still know how it’s all going to end. Columbia Pictures The 27 worst film sequels of all time Jaws 2 Jaws 2 sees the great white original reduced to a lukewarm b-movie filled with bad special effects and clumsy editing. The only positive thing about Jaws 2 is that all the characters are so annoying that it’s actually pretty satisfying watching them get eaten alive. See also Jaws 3, 4 and 5. Rex Features The 27 worst film sequels of all time American Psycho 2 He might have been a crazed narcissist, but Patrick Bateman deserved better than this sequel. Thankfully, no one actually remembers that American Psycho 2 exists, or that Mila Kunis is the lead, which is good because it ruins the ambiguous ending of the original film. No amount of peppermint sheet masks could ever clean this mess of a movie up. Rex Features The 27 worst film sequels of all time Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights Deciding to leave Baby in the corner, Havana Nights shares little with the original Dirty Dancing. Patrick Swayze’s simmering dance instructor becomes a charisma deprived pool boy. Our heroine has been replaced by an uptight WASP and worst of all there’s no overhead lift. Your eyes will be left hungry for more. Lionsgate The 27 worst film sequels of all time Titanic II Even if you don’t like James Cameron’s 1997 Oscar-winning behemoth, it’s hard to forget the iconic image of a ship and its passengers meeting their watery doom. The digital effects of Titanic II, however, look like a child’s version of the original’s visuals. The plot – about a boat literally named Titanic II that takes its maiden voyage 100 years after the first – is equally creaky. The Asylum The 27 worst film sequels of all time The Sting II Ten years after the original film, Mac Davis and Jackie Gleason fill in for Paul Newman and Robert Redford in this heist remake. Considering the movie’s clumsy mobster dialogue and slow-moving plot, the audience in 1983 might have felt like they were the ones who had really been hoodwinked. Universal The 27 worst film sequels of all time Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 The original Blair Witch changed the face of horror forever, inspiring hysteria with its cheap but innovative found-footage hook. Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 has better production values, but manages to be far less clever. A group of students visiting the first film’s location find themselves in danger, and the plot unravels from there. Haxan Films The 27 worst film sequels of all time Rambo First Blood: Part 2 John Rambo is stripped of any the nuance he had in the first film, becoming an all-American macho cliche and increasing his body count through cartoonish violence. The ex-soldier tears through Vietnam to rescue American prisoners of war as a one man army, seemingly impervious to bullets or logic. If the absurd plot doesn’t jar for you, the politics probably will. The 27 worst film sequels of all time Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps Given the global recession that hung over this follow-up to the original 1987 Wall Street, director Oliver Stone could have made a far more interesting and timely film. A cast including Michael Sheen and Shia LaBeouf provide diminishing returns in a tale of greed that ultimately pulls its punches. Fox The 27 worst film sequels of all time Weekend at Bernie's 2 You may ask yourself how it’s possible to make a sequel to a film based on two friends pretending a corpse is still alive in order to party. The makers of Weekend at Bernie’s 2 were probably asking themselves the same thing in 1993. This tired comedy never crosses over from stupid into funny, despite many of the cast returning to try and recapture the dubious magic. Entertainment Film Distributors The 27 worst film sequels of all time S. Darko The sequel to Donnie Darko toys with the concept of time, by wasting yours. The dialogue is awful, the acting wooden, and you don’t even get to see an angsty black haired Jake Gyllenhaal in all his blue-eyed glory. Director of the original, Richard Kelly, was so offended by S. Darko he described the experience of watching it as “horribly violating”. Fox The 27 worst film sequels of all time Little Fockers Robert De Niro’s reputation continued to devalue with the third installment of the Meet The Parents series. The title indicates how much effort was put into this family comedy, which relies on under-the-belt hits to wring any laughs out of its audience. The 27 worst film sequels of all time Now You See Me 2 This follow-up to the flashy 2013 film squanders the only reason it would have a sequel, and somehow is not named Now You See Me Now. The sleight-of-hand magic here is all style and no substance, and the endless overcomplicated reveals of characters tricking each other become very irritating. Rex The 27 worst film sequels of all time Mulan II Mulan is a gender-bending, brave heroine who refuses to conform to society's expectations of her. That is, until she reappears in the Disney sequel as a devoted wife who is more than willing to comply with her husbands demands. Now even her pet dragon Mushu doesn’t like her. Sky The 27 worst film sequels of all time Son of the Mask Jim Carrey is replaced by Alan Cumming in this low-budget comedy sequel, which manages to be both frantic and boring at once. Director Lawrence Guterman tries to make up for the lack of Carrey’s signature comedic vim by adding a baby and a dog, but their antics can’t distract from the ugly production design. Sky The 27 worst film sequels of all time Grease 2 Danny and Sandy flying off into the sunset should have been the end of Grease. But money-hungry film execs brought us back to Rydell High for sequel fans were hopelessly undevoted to. "I hated that film with a vengeance and could not believe how bad it was," said Sandy stand-in Michelle Pfieffer years later. "At the time I was young and didn't know any better." Paramount The 27 worst film sequels of all time Dumb and Dumber To Stupider even than its title, the Farrelly brothers’ sequel puts its stars (Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels) through an overlong retread of past material. The broad humour feels decades out of date, and the energy that propelled the original through its juvenile jokes is gone. It’s hard to imagine who was the target audience for these gross-out sight gags. Hopper Stone, SMPSP The 27 worst film sequels of all time The Birds II: Lands’ End Hitchcock’s 1963 film The Birds was a masterclass in suspense. The birds that menace Tippi Hedron and the other inhabitants of Bodega Bay become genuinely disturbing through a slow, atmospheric build of tension. This made-for-TV sequel has the same avian threat, and some of the same cast, but none of the classic thrills. MCA Home Video The 27 worst film sequels of all time Basic Instinct 2 Sharon Stone had bad instincts when she agreed to this film. Even a new take on her iconic leg-crossing interrogation scene couldn’t save this sequel from one of the worst rotten tomato ratings on record. It managed to make less than $6m Stateside on a $70m budget. Rex Features The 27 worst film sequels of all time Cruel Intentions 2 Amy Adams tries her best to tear into her role as a sadistic, sex-obsessed bully but the script for Cruel Intentions 2 – strictly speaking, a prequel, but sssh – is so bad that even she failed to save it. When her stepbrother Sebastian moves into her Mum’s Manhattan mansion, she barges into his shower and warns him, "no one is going to threaten my cushy life". What teenager would ever say "cushy life"? Columbia The 27 worst film sequels of all time Mean Girls 2 Did a Mean Girls sequel happen if Tina Fey wasn’t around to write it? No, no it did not. A Plastics vs nerds turf war in the pits of the high school jungle just doesn’t work without Fey’s tight one-liners. In Mean Girls 2 we hear none of the “on Wednesdays we wear pink” “that's why her hair is so big. It's full of secrets” “you can’t sit with us” zingers that made the original film so magical. Paramount The 27 worst film sequels of all time Blues Brothers 2000 Although the soundtrack had its fans, this film is essentially a remake of the 1980 original without one half of the titular Blues Brothers (John Belushi died in 1982). Bafflingly, he is replaced by a 10-year old child in sunglasses. It’s half as funny and nowhere near as infectiously fun, but if you only care about the music, that might not matter. Sky The 27 worst film sequels of all time The Godfather Part III Infamous for ruining what would have been, in many critics’ eyes, a perfect trio of movies, The Godfather Part III delivers a slow anti-climax. The film has its defenders, but given the calibre of the first two Godfathers, this last instalment is the black sheep of the family. Paramount The 27 worst film sequels of all time The Next Karate Kid A young Hilary Swank stars in the fourth Karate Kid film, a precursor to the modern trend of rebooting ailing franchises with a female lead. Pat Morita as Mr Miyagi is charming as always, but the script is mostly recycled. There are a couple of interesting differences: Swank has a pet hawk, Buddhist monks dance to the Cranberries, and there’s almost no fighting. But what’s a Karate Kid sequel without the Kid or the karate? Columbia Pictures The 27 worst film sequels of all time Staying Alive It might be called Staying Alive, but you won’t want to after watching this sequel. Six years after our hero Tony Manero made white polyester bell bottoms popular, we check back in on him as he auditions for a new Broadway musical called Satan’s Alley. There are far too many romantic subplots, oiled up chests and loincloths to make this film okay. Paramount Pictures The 27 worst film sequels of all time Speed 2 Keanu Reeves wisely didn’t pick up the phone for this Razzie-winning action thriller. The speeding bus rigged by a bomber in the 1994 film is bizarrely replaced by a cruise ship here, making the action a lot slower and more boring. Poor Sandra Bullock is given nothing interesting to do, and surely must have been tempted to look for a lifeboat. Sky

When the first trailer was released in April, Sonic’s eerily human teeth and unsettlingly muscular legs prompted a merciless Twitter backlash. Director Jeff Fowler promised to make drastic changes to the CGI design, creating the hashtag #gottafixfast, and the film’s release was pushed back. Fowler tweeted in May, “Taking a little more time to make Sonic just right. #novfxartistswereharmedinthemakingofthismovie.”

Behind the scenes, however, animators at Moving Picture Company Vancouver were reportedly working 17-hour days and weekends to get the redesign done in time. And then, on 12 December, the studio division announced that it was closing. Around 80 employees, who had also worked on The Lion King and The Call of the Wild, were left jobless, as the company allegedly cited tax incentives elsewhere as the reason.

A pattern seems to emerge here. When something in the design goes wrong, creating a furry Lovecraftian horror who repulses the human eye, all the blame lands on the VFX. And when something goes right (like Sonic’s cuddlier redesign) the team sees no reward, not even job security. Even Rhythm & Hues, the team that won an Oscar for Life of Pi, was forced to file for bankruptcy after the film came out.

Joe Pavlo, Chair of the Animation and VFX Union branch at BECTU, has worked in visual effects for decades. Those who work in post production are “much more vulnerable than almost any other industry”, he tells me. “No one has job security, not even the higher-ups. No one knows where they’re working next year, or three months from now. The industry is in a race to the bottom – everything has to be done quicker and cheaper than the last project. And we’re treated as a disposable short-term workforce.”

Before and after: The Sonic you’ll see in cinemas, left, and the horror glimpsed in the film’s first trailer, right ( Paramount Pictures )

As for what he thinks is behind sloppy CGI and bad working conditions, he says that visual effects are “kind of late to the party as far as the history of the film industry. When I started in London 25 years ago, we were just a bunch of nerds who came out of nowhere with a can-do spirit as outsiders. So we were taken advantage of. Fast forward to today and VFX are the film industry. You can make films without them, but you can’t make a billion dollars.

“But it’s still a Wild West,” he continues. “Every other department has been established for 100 years, and we’re still finding our feet. Our industry is dramatically evolving every year, too – we do things as an afterthought today that would have taken an A-list team a week to do 10 years ago. Computers are faster and more sophisticated, we have a lot more experience and expertise. But that comes with sloppy work practices – we don’t have a union like all the other departments.”

Reportedly, under half of the VFX workforce in London are unionised, and it may be as low as 10 or 20 per cent in other parts of the world. So when Tony Stark’s costume design hasn’t been finished in time for shooting Avengers: Endgame, it’s much easier to ask post-production to work slightly longer to create a CGI suit than to physically make a real costume.

Yikes: Jennifer Hudson in ‘Cats’ ( Universal Pictures )

The infamous “crunch” which animators have blamed for rushed work like Cats is a reference to “crunch time” – the period before a film’s release where artists have to work staggering amounts of overtime in order to get a job done before the money runs out. The instability of the VFX industry, and the inconsistency of the work it produces, may be due to these tight schedules.

“Unpaid excessive overtime is the default,” Pavlo says. “Some places are better than others. But generally speaking, when you get a contract somewhere big in London like ILM, the first thing you get is an overtime waiver. At the minute, EU rules limit how much overtime employers can ask for, so workers have to waive their own rights before they begin. These companies plan for unpaid overtime in their spreadsheets before they even start a project.”

A survey commissioned by The Film and TV Charity recently found that 90 per cent of the UK film industry had faced mental health issues, which can’t have been helped by those long hours. VFX professionals in particular talked about social isolation, alcohol and drug dependency.

“Numerous studies show mental and physical health declines after working a 50-hour week,” Pavlo says. “If you could get hold of 100 animators, and asked them how often they work 50 hours, they would say every week.”

Mockery: James Corden and Rebel Wilson mock ‘Cats’ at the 2020 Academy Awards ( Kevin Winter/Getty Images )

In the wake of Sonic, studios seem to have decided that last-minute adjustments are worth it, regardless of how hard VFX teams have to work.

“I can’t remember another time there’s been a reset, but it was incredibly smart of everyone involved to listen to the fans and give them what they want,” Chris Aronson, Paramount’s president of domestic distribution, told Variety after Sonic opened at the top of the weekend box office. “The consumer always determines what is right and what is wrong. They made their voices clear, and we listened.”

Demands may therefore be on the verge of increasing. Shows like Game of Thrones and His Dark Materials have raised the standard of what TV can look like, so the TV industry will probably ask more from VFX studios in the future, too.

When I ask Pavlo what the way forward is for VFX, his reply is firm. “Organising the workforce. Unions are the only thing that will benefit employees and employers, and prevent this kind of race to the bottom.”

Spend on film and high-end television production in the UK in 2019 was the highest ever recorded, increasing by 16 per cent to £3.62bn, according to figures from the British Film Institute.