I guess part of my reason for posting this comes from having watched both the first Chronicles of Narnia film and King Kong in the past 3 days during my holiday break from work... While I didn't think Chronicles of Narnia was a particularly great film, the CGI was, relatively, more tasteful than the effects-fest that was King Kong...I am reminded once again of my constant remark that, 'As Star Wars has taught of late, CGI does not a movie make...'

The thing is that I've seen films recently that use CGI in a tasteful way. Serenity, for example. Real backgrounds, real sets. Space footage done in CGI, but all has the sort of dark mis-en-scene that Lord of the Rings does, so as to make tasteful the CGI moments integrated with models/actors/sets. Both LOTR and Serenity are films that I feel use CGI in a productive and tasteful way.