So recently I was watching through Marvel movies to get ready to finally watch the last two Avengers ones. I'm not crazy about them but it's ok fun. Part of the problem with them is what you say, the action is so much CGI it just turns meh.

But then I was watching Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and I was not very engaged but following it. At some point I caught myself having a elevated heart-beat and at the edge of my seat. This was the highway bridge scene.

I asked myself what is going on, I don't really care that much about the characters or plot, why am I so engaged?

Then I saw this episode of Corridor Crew's Stuntmen React[1], where one of the stunt performers mentioned almost every stunt in that scene was a practical stunt. And with that it all made sense.

[1]: https://youtu.be/SgGpPRBTBTI?t=45

Take a look at Jurassic Park sometime, the Spielberg one from 1993. They used animatronics for most of the dinos and they look almost real still, almost 30 years on.

The same with the original Star Wars trilogy, they're all models lit by actual lights so there's a depth and "realness" to the lighting that makes it look so much more authentic than even modern CGI.

Indiana Jones special effects were pretty interesting too in that regard:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lN4weKvqmb8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YceegyOXzh0

There is some selection bias going on. There was an amazing amount of bad and unconvincing special effect in movies before cgi. We just tend to remember the successful and convincing examples. Modern movies and tv productions have an amazing amount of cgi going on, and we only notice the effects when they are not convincing.