I was tempted just to pass the HFR version of the film with critics saying it made the production look fake like a soap opera, but as a lover of technology I just couldn't not see it for myself. After sitting though 24fps trailers of Star Trek and Superman and then going into the start of The Hobbit with Old Bilbo reaching into a chest, I thought it looked terrible, I was ready to write it off there. Then the action scene with the dragon happened 5 minutes later and during that scene I became adjusted and it looked fantastic. The first 30 minutes was a bit of a slow ride with all the Dwarfs arriving at Bilbos, but during this dinner scene they really showed off the technology, you really felt like you were in this Hobbits House, the 3D in this part was great you could be in one room with Bilbo talking to Gandalf and you could look in the background and see the Dwarfs in another room. Once Bilbo left The Shire it's when the HFR really came into it's own, a scene of Bilbo running thought the fields outside Hobbiton really showed the smoothness of the camera panning and the 3D looked great in the on location scenes. Once you got to The Troll scene I was blowing away how much detail there was on this CGI creatures, you had real actors being held by them and it looked so real. From this point on apart from a stop at the Elf's village it is pretty much one great action scene after the other, but easily the highlight of the movie was Gollum, this was when I was 100% sold on the high frame rate. The realism of the movements Gollum was making along with maybe the greatest CGI model ever created was just mind blowing, along with Andy Serkis doing some amazing acting in this scene you really felt like you were looking though a window at a Gollum Enclosure, easily my favourite part of the film. This also reminds me the 3D in this movie was unlike any thing I had seen before, with the 3D trailers before the movie still in my mind, The Hobbit didn't have that effect where every person looks like a cut out in a school project diorama, things had a true sense of depth, there was no weird effect when they would walk closer to the camera that other 3D films have had, I didn't get headaches or any of the symptons I have experienced from 3D in the past. Also there are a few scenes in this movie that are in slow motion, this mixed with the HFR really produces works of art, there's a scene at the end when Bilbo is running though fire in slow motion straight at a enemy with a over the shoulder type camera view that looks really great, infact there is a few video game inspired camera angles, in the caves you have a few instances when you get First Person Perspective from Gandalf only for a few seconds, and another where Gandalf and the Drawfs are running from the goblins and it has the look of a 2D platformer.
Overall easily the greatest 3D I have ever seen, was just so immersed into this movie after the first 5-10 minutes, great story and characters introduced in this movie, best cgi and action scenes I have seen in a while, there are a few scenes that really didn't need to be in there but I really didn't care because I was loving the HFR so much, can't recommend it enough even for people that have written off 3D after the past few years.
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