David O'Mahony: Why 1990s disaster movies still beat today's CGI blockbusters

David O'Mahony says practical effects, classic disaster movies and Christopher Nolan still offer an antidote to AI-era filmmaking

An eruptive fissure of an active volcano in Grindavik on Iceland's Reykjanes Peninsula. Movie reincarnations can only achieve recreations with practical effects and models rather than with CGI or AI creations. Picture:  AP Photo/Marco Di Marco

Sometimes all you need is a bit of escapism. Actually, maybe more than sometimes. It’s been one of those lifetimes.

My wife and I don’t get to watch films together as often as we used to, so when we do we try to make it count. And we’ve been on a sort of retrospective, nostalgic trip recently, even if it has at times taken us two, even three nights to watch an entire movie (thank you to our three children there).