I disagree. The point you're making is predicated on not understanding SQL. If you know an ORM well, and don't understand SQL, then of course it will be easier to review. I would however argue that if you don't understand SQL, then you can never truly understand an ORM, in that you can't know what the DB is capable of doing. You'll probably get lucky for things like `WHERE foo IN (...) --> WHERE EXISTS` translations that the DB's optimizer does for you, but you also probably won't even know that's happening, since in this scenario you don't understand SQL.

ORMs typically do an OK job at producing OK queries, in that they're unlikely to be the worst possible option, but are unlikely to be optimal. This is largely driven by schema decisions, which, if you don't understand SQL, are unlikely be optimal. The clunkiest, least-performant queries I've ever dealt with were always rooted in having a poorly-designed schema.