> The problem is not with code reviews but with how ... they have become.

Perhaps "banal" is the word you are meant to use.

There's a saying about that a 10 line PR will get 10 comments, but a 1000 line PR will get a "looks good!".

Of course this is not really what is happening. A 10 line PR can be completely unintelligible and a 1000 line PR might be a joy to read.

Once the code base has become a ball of mud, no one really bothers to review anything properly - it's going to take as long as writing it yourself. So perhaps, we get picky about some worn out code style point (incorrect indent etc) just to show we are alive.