Hobbit-
Not terrible. Fun, but not the experience I was hoping for. It's pretty tough, because most of the stuff I have to complain about comes straight from the book, but I was still hoping the Jackson team could have pulled something better off.
I still think I overall liked it, but here are the reasons I'm not over the moon.
I posted my rambling about the HFR in the 48fps thread, so this review is just about the movie part.
SPOILERS FOLLOW throughout:
Talking creatures. Trolls, Goblin Kings, etc... are all extremely verbose. Yes, I realize this is exactly the same in the book. But it's such a tonal shift from LotR where the beasts are beasts. And a troll named Tom, really? I realize that they couldn't have removed the talking without totally rewriting the scene and that probably wouldn't have ended well... But talking trolls? Maybe the whole story should have been told by Bilbo to Frodo and Pippin, and when the trolls talked to Bilbo, who believes all good stories should be exaggerated, it cuts back to some doubting younger hobbits and Bilbo saying "it's my story, let me tell it" or something like that. Maybe not that exactly, but I guess I think the disconnect between the Hobbit and LotR can be explained by Bilbo being an unreliable narrator.
The "Gimli is funny and short" bits are some of my least favourite of LotR, so I figured 12 Gimlis would only increase the dwarven humour. I was prepared for it, but I still don't really care for it. Some of it was legitimately funny, but it's not the droid I'm looking for.
Bilbo gets himself in trouble, and the dwarves heroically run in from the right side of the frame to save him. Seems like I saw this once more than I needed to.
Radagast. This sequence seemed longer than it should have been. The whole time I thought, "I'm gonna fan-edit this whole scene out of the movie". Unfortunately, at least parts of it become necessary once he runs into the party. But still, it was too long and too weird for my tastes.
The "MY NAME IS ROBIN. YOU KNOW, LIKE BATMAN AND ROBIN. GET IT?" (or Moneypenny) scene in this movie for me was instead at the start.
FRODO: Well... see you later, Bilbo.
BILBO: Where are you going, my lad?
F: Well, it's the morning of your birthday party, so even the casual viewer probably knows that I'm going to go sit under a tree and wait for Gandalf to come at the start of Fellowship.
B: I don't know. You can't trust an audience to get these things unless they're YELLED AT THE TOP OF YOUR LUNGS. I SAY, WHERE ARE YOU GOING?
F: TO WAIT FOR GANDALF. YOU KNOW, *WINK, WINK*.
B: OKAY, TRY TO NOT HAVE ANY ADVENTURES! (giggle)
I have seen the Gollum act before, and I was prepared to not be amazed. But so help me it was amazing. Best part of the show.
Unfortunately, I felt like every possible cameo had already been shoehorned into the movie before then, so I wasn't sure if Gollum wasn't deflated a bit by that. Again, I'm struggling with this... I know a lot of Jackson's goal was to show the seeds of LotR during The Hobbit, so the mini-council' scene was just that and there's no reason to think all of those characters couldn't have been there... but I was still thinking young Chewbacca might have shown up at any instant.
The stone giant scene could have been cut with no great loss, I think. And I think the dinner party scene overstayed its necessary.
That is to say, I at least partially agree with the "movie is too long for its own good" and "why is this 3 movies again" sentiments that are about.
10/14 party members