Allow me to me be as non-confrontational as possible in my argument about the visuals in the film:
In my opinion, and it is mine alone, I found the technical aspects of the visuals exhilarating for the most part. There is definitely a beauty to seeing a completely CGI world so fully rendered as to make one forget its virtuality. But in terms of cinematography, I found the lighting and camera to be relatively paint-by-numbers for the production. I also found that the lighting was often employed poorly enough to make certain CGI shots appear nearly 100% real, while other shots felt far too manufactured and thus lost that stunning effect. The shots tend to be fairly conventional, and rarely is anything too interesting done with the camera that hasn't been done in other huge effects films or computer animated films. I also personally didn't care for the production design. I get that he wanted to show the world all that bio-luminescence stuff he discovered under the sea, but he often went way overboard with it and instead of wowing me it simply looked fake and took me out of the film. I could go on about the writing and the story, but my problems with those aspects of the film are far greater and more complex so I'll save you that.
I really don't see how I, or David Chen (not /Film, do not confuse them) were phrasing our issues just to sound different. David Chen voiced an opinion on the varying quality of the CGi that I most definitely agree with and his co-host unfortunately ganged up on him so that he, once again, was unable to explain his point properly and comprehensibly.