The last movie that I saw that really blew me away with its special effects was the first Matrix movie. Are they overdone nowadays or is it just me?

They are.

I'm a huge fan of cinema and I love behind-the-scenes documentaries. The problem nowadays is that they just CGI the fuck out of everything, and no matter how detailed they get it's noticeable as fuck. When it's not a character the CGI might not even be necessary to look realistic.

For example, in Empire Strikes Back they didn't have enough fiber optics for Vader's Super Star Destroyer. They used fiber optics in the ships to show activity inside. A ship like the Millenium Falcon only needs a few lights because it was a skeleton crew of maybe three or four; a capital ship however has thousands of people working inside it, so they need hundreds of lights darted all over the "hull". What they ended up doing for Vader's ship was poke numerous holes through the "hull" while detailing the ship and they had two giant lamps inside the ship on each side to get the same effect. Of course it's not noticeable and looks just as good as the Star Destroyers that appear in Rogue One.

There are other examples like all the suited up characters in the Marvel movies; The Infinity War trailer was really fucking bad with its CGI but they're probably still doing touch ups. But it really kills the "movie magic" if you will, because why innovate and come up with new ways of achieving a good visual when you can just computer animate everything?

I recommend watching CinemaTyler's Youtube series on making 2001: A Space Odyssey, because that is a perfect example of special effects back in the day, and how different it is to now.

i was never really bothered by them, if they stick out in some way ill just go eh and continue