This is obviously just a phase, it'll pass as it become old and tired. Which it is already beginning to do. Since the nineties with films like Jurassic Park, movie maker have begun to really wow people with special effect. IMHO, Jurassic Park used them very well, not to show off, but as a tool to telling the story. Somewhere along the line, it feels like a of film makers have started going crazy with the special effects to a degree were they take priority way above story telling. I have an older relative who loves going to the movies, so he is often the one we'd turn to to ask, "Is that movie worth seeing?" and it got to one point were he gave the same review for almost every film, "Eh, wasn't very good, but the special effects were excellent! Worth going to see it for those alone!" The problem is, special effects have taken a huge leap from the eighties to present, but they are old news now. It is not that they are still improving by leaps and bounds, in fact, my feelings are that they are beginning to look pretty cheap.

It also feels like a way for story tellers to get a bit ridiulous and lazy. You now have situations were things that were way beyond the realm of possibilty are now very possible, but some of these things are so fantastic and so silly, it just looks weird to see them happening in a lve action film based in the world we live in. Indy IV with the man eating ants and the monkeys are a good example. In the past a film maker wanting to do something like that would be grounded to reality by not being able to pull it off, now sky is the limit. You can do ridiculous things like that and wow some people with your amazing special effects, while breaking the suspension of disbelief for others. "Okay, there are giant vicious man eating ants carrying people away, what am I watching? The Mummy?" You really can take things too far, and we are doing it all the time now.