what made it look cgi was that the "wall of fire" was basically a composite of an actual fireball & actual models of buildings/cars/etc. that were shot seperately & composited together. It was actually pretty creative the way they shot that, as to get the fire to look like a wall moving up the street, the mounted the camera directly overhead facing straight down & set pyrotechnics off below it so as the fireball travelled up in real life, it travelled "horizontally" across the ground from the camera's point of view.
anyways, i'm in agreement with most here that cgi isn't all bad, it's just way overdone & often done poorly. & I DO much prefer practical effects whenever possible, but i'm also a diehard Godzilla & harryhausen fan, so....