What bothers me sometimes about CGI the most isn't even the CGI itself, it's the poor acting. Most great actors are only great in talking or when the camera is all on them, but their imagination jumps the shark as their performance becomes bigger than their character.
I didn't wanna blow anyone's high at the time, but when Justice League was promoing w/ trailers, there's a shot where Aquaman drops into a building with a parademon.
Now if that was an actual building, Superhuman strength and invulnerability aside, you're still trying to have a clean landing, ducking debris flying in your face, etc. Jason Momoa just focuses on the parademon he's surfing all the way from when they drop in the building, and he slides out of the building like he just walked out of a revolving door from a board of directors meeting. If you can't explore those moments intricately to express them in the proper way direction- and acting- wise then just don't attempt, cause once you notice it as a viewer it cancels the immersion for the rest of the movie. And even if you're a popcorn action flick fan who thinks it's not that serious something in the back of your head will notice there's something "off".
That's why a lot of non cgi scenes tend to get more props, cause you don't have to imagine the intricacies of the weather, wind blowing, dust, heat, etc. cause it's happening in real time. Alot of actors are only focused on the man-to-man interaction aspect of the performance and consideration of the other aspects of the scene is left to the imagination of the scene director/choreographer.
Someone just mentioned titan above, that's another thing. There's destruction when they're fighting. When they're at rest in these CGI scenes there's no wind blowing, no random things in the distance the character notices for no reason, etc. So the performances become less layered.
to me. I don't know why they can't use normal locations for scenes.
