CGI has in many ways ruined Hollywood action movies as they tend to over rely on them. The story is not as important, it’s how much action can we pack into it. In the last few years, there were really only two movies (IMO) that I think were really good. That is “The Book Thief” and “The Grand Budapest Hotel”. They were good stories and the biggest actor in either of them is Ralph Fiennes who is not a top tier actor.
I have to say that the best shows are not in the movies any longer. T.V. and especially cable T.V. has some of the most ground breaking stuff out there today.
So true there is typically no subtlety at all. CGI like any other tool will take time for people to figure out (I remember the over abundance of synthesized music in the 80s as one example). Some on cable are figuring it out though. If you watch at Game of Thrones they have used a LOT of CGI to provide the locations but it is nearly undetectable unless you are looking for it. Most importantly the producers understand that it should aid the story and not be the focus.
I've seen "The Book Thief" and agree that it's very good. I've not yet seen "The Grand Budapest Hotel", but I'll take a look soon. I thought "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" was fairly well done (and it had an excellent British cast). Just yesterday I saw "Chef" and couldn't help but notice that despite the lack of gratuitous sex and violence, excessive computerized graphics and so on, it was a pretty darned good movie. Too bad Tom Cruise's latest effort was playing right next door, with its intrusive thumping explosions.
Learned something else yesterday - there's a smartphone app that tells you what times during any given movies are best for bathroom breaks. Finally, all this technology pays off. :-/