Ineffective Special Effects

Chris Orr, in his review of Body of Lies:

[Ridley Scott's] aesthetic and political purposes are in tension: How upset can we be about a deadly explosion when Scott has labored so mightily to make it look cool? Though evidently intended to straddle the divide between action thriller and geopolitical fable, when pushed, Body of Lies tumbles into the former genre.

I've often felt this director's divide between sticking to the flow & tone of the film and making the most of special effects. I've seen behind-the-scene works on what goes into creating a crash or an explosion. When so much money and time is spent by the stunt team, it only seems natural to justify their efforts by showing the 'action' from various angles, repeat with slow-motions. But if it's not an outright action movie whose target audience are juvenile boys, the multiple-angle-slo-mo shots only dilute the intensity of narration.