Yeah, Part 2 will deal with getting to the mountain and handling Smaug, and Part 3 will be about the aftermath of that and the Battle of Five Armies. Plus you'll have all the added White Council/Necromancer stuff.

Neither can I. But then, I never expected The Two Towers to be over 140 minutes.

Jackson's capable of adding new stuff. He'd create another franchise if they let him.

Idk about ya'll but I liked that short glimpse of Sauron in his black armor with his mighty mace. I wish there was more of that and if we get just a bit of that in the 3rd film well I'll be quite happy.

While I refuse to watch The Hobbit because of my contempt for how Peter Jackson mangled LOTR - - as a movie fan I just had to check out the new 48fps technology - - and since producers likely won't be leaping to use it after it's mixed critical reception, I figured I'd better get out to experience it while the gettin' was good. Here is my review of 48fps 3DHFR as well as a few comments on The Hobbit, though of course, no grade since I only watched about 15% of it.

I see less movies nowadays than I used to (I have seen a very small % of 2012's movies), but Hobbit is my favorite this year, followed closely by TDKR. 2012 has been a very nice year for major blockbusters for me, because of these 2 movies. Avengers was pretty good, but not that great. I don't think I will ever understand what everyone (critics as well as regular viewers) loved in it.

BJs Grade:

B

Watched in HFR 3D, looked amazing. It was hard to get used too at first but man did it improve the action sequences tremendously, and it went from being odd in the beginning to being great overall by the end. The movie its self was a considerable drop in quality from the LOTR, but still an enjoyable watch all the same.

I think I enjoyed it overall. I had no issues with the Frame rate. I thought we were in trouble about an 45 minutes in, but once they get out of the Shire the film is very enjoyable until the end, and I could have used more. Kind of the exact opposite of ROTK in that respect. That one had no idea how to end, this one had no idea how to start. My only other complaint is outside of Bilbo, Gandalf, and the head Dwarf the rest of the characters are kind of one note and forgettable. In fact I'd call most of the film forgettable, nothing really stayed with me afterwards, but I still had a good time while watching it. After ROTK, Kong, and Lovely Bones all being disappointing, I was pleasantly surprised with the Hobbit.

B+

Be honest: the scene of Gandalf arriving in the cave to stop the goblins is awesome. The shot of his silhouette among the white silence is gorgeous.

QFT

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2D)

I cannot for the life of me understand why some people have been saying that it's too long, or that it drags at the beginning. The film is non-stop adventure for it's entire running time. Not a dull moment. Well, there were times of talking and waiting, but they were still very interesting, for me at least. This entire film has done such a magnificent job is laying the ground work for the two other movies to follow, plus giving us a whole 2 hours and 45 minutes of utter adventure and action of epic proportions. I absolutely loved it.

I've seen two movies today, this and Jack Reacher, they're the two best movies of the year. My day has been memorable. I'm so into the story of this one now...I just can't wait for another. The effects are awesome, the story is superb. I thought before going in that Martin Freeman might not be able to handle the pressure of Bilbo Baggins, but he's FAR better than Elijah Wood as Frodo, much more believeable. I always did dislike Frodo, so to get Bilbo now is awesome, much better. Gollum was pretty shit in this, but I never liked him too much anyway. I loved the whole scene where they are versus the goblins, then versus Thorin's nemesis that he thought was dead, that was intense and magical. If I'm being overly critical, I suppose the dwarves' scenes at the start weren't ideal, but they actually helped the film later on, and the dwarves overall, while I do not know their names at all, were excellent. Peter Jackson has made another masterpiece. He has managed to balance humour (so as to not aim solely for kids) with action and adventure...perfection really.

A+

QFT

Agreed, probably my favorite scene in the movie.

Just saw it in 3D on a huge Imax screen but not at the higher frame rate.

I was very pleasantly surprised, based on some of the reviews. I wasn't bored at all.

Objectively, I can see where things could have been cut completely and not have hurt the story at all (Radergast for instance) and so I understand how some reviewers may complain.

Subjectively, I am the target audience for this film. (I run a fantasy medieval LARP and write fantasy novels for chrissake). So I had a great time.

My wife and I are considering driving into Manhattan to see it again but this time at 48 fps.

I didn't much like Radergast as a character, but his involvement was totally needed, in my opinion. He gave one of the biggest shocks in the film and delivered the Necromancer into the tale. This little girl sat next to me jumped and hugged her mum when Radergast was telling his story and that Necromancer came at the screen really fast. That was awesome to see, and not because I'm a sadist, but because I like to see movies still move people, literally, in this day and age (it doesn't happen often).

And yes, regarding the Gandalf entrace versus the goblins, it was like art. Amazing. Definitely one of the high points. I enjoyed The Hobbit very much in the same way that I enjoyed King Kong. It had layers and character development, but also long spells of adventure and mayhem to keep us entertained. I really cannot say a bad thing about it.

Them keeping the Smaug a secret until the next two movies was kind of fine with me too. Looking forward to them. On a side note, how do you say "Smaug". In the film they said it like "Sma-ug", didn't they? But I say it like "Smawg"..doesn't really matter much.

Well in French they pronounced Smaug exactly like "smoke" but with a "g" instead of the "ke".

Ah ok, yeah, I could do that. Smoge. Cool.

Well saw the hfr version and I still liked the film. I do think one big chunk of scenes could have been trimmed and that was the whole sequence with the giant mountain rock things. Ott, I loved the Gollum sequence even more. Gandalf showing off wizard power in the goblin city was awesome too.

The movie is a step down from the past LOTR films but its a sweeping Fantasy epic that you rarely see these days.

The film starts off slow but the adventure/Action scenes are very much like FOTR...

What a sweet surprise this was.

Like just about everyone else here, I went in with lowered expectations and it sure paid off. It felt so natural to be back in Middle Earth which is great kudos to Jackson. The critics have been way wrong about this one. They let their contempt of this being turned into 3 films as well as their distaste for 48FPS to cloud their judgement.

Gandalf was just like he was in FOTR, though perhaps even more likeable. Freeman as Bilbo is great (agree better character than Frodo), Thorin is another great character while the remainder of the dwarves were funny and had more character than I was expecting. The dwarves were always my biggest fear about the film as I never really warmed to Gimli in the LOTR films. But they were great. Also the humour was perfectly done - unlike some of the attempts in LOTR.

Scenery was spectacular. Reason enough to watch the film.

Great to see Galadriel (Blanchette looks better than she did in FOTR), Saruman (so thankful the frail Christopher Lee could make an appearance) and offcourse Hugo Weaving as Elrond.

Now Gollum - his appearance was probably the highlight of the film. Just amazing and better than any of his LOTR scenes.

For the record I saw this in fake IMAX 3D and not in HFR. I'm glad I did and though Im not usually a fan of 3D, the 3D in this was as good as Avatar and Hugo 3D. I probably will skip HFR or just sneak in and watch bit next time I go to see a movie.

Negatives? Probably could have been a little shorter and perhaps some of the action sequences were repetitive but they are minor gripes.

I didnt find the the first part of the film slow at all. In fact it moved along nicely and so did the whole film. I dont get the complaints here. It certainly wasnt as slow as the first part of Avengers or parts of TDKR or Skyfall.

Maybe lowered expectations helped (my expectations for FOTR were sky high so I was initially disappointed but then fell in love with it on second viewing) but The Hobbit sits as my favourite film of the year (havn't seen any of the late year awards films yet) and certainly my favourite among the big blockbusters. Agree with Algren that perhaps only Amazing Spiderman also surpassed expectations.

Grade : A (maybe A+ but needs a second viewing)

Great review. I agree with everything you said (not the negative stuff), especially that part above. The critics have complained about a slow first half, but I saw no traces of that whatsoever. I didn't get bored once, and for an almost 3 hour long movie, that's a feat, my ass felt fine.

Yeah that's right it wasn't slow at all. It was basically made up of:

1. Exciting prologue regarding the dwarves history
2. Dwarves crashing Bilbo's dinner which was alot of fun
3. The Journey begins... and very soon the action starts

I suspect the critics were struggling with the 48hps and just wanted to complain about something.

You are Correct SIR!

Just read your review and completely agree about being ok with 3 films. Very ok with it!!

Did you end up seeing it in normal 3D or 2D?

2D first. HFR 3D 2nd (had a coupon). I actually liked the 3D or it seemed crisper and clearer to me. Sometimes the motion of the actors seemed speeded up and it looked like some of those 50s or 60s tv shows in black and white that just seemed like you were there on the set. It's hard to explain but you can notice the difference.