Flawed but Ultimately Enjoyable Trip Back to Middle-Earth

Rating: 8/10 (14 December 2012)

Note: I saw this in the intended HFR 3D Format.
The Good Overall I really enjoyed it. Martin Freeman was perfect Gandalf was perfect Thorin was perfect Gollum's CGI was a lot better than the original trilogy Scenic shots were majestic
The Bad Definitely dragged in many bits. I felt at least 20-30 mins could be cut out and the film would benefit from it and feel a lot more coherent. For example I didn't think the Radagast scene added much at all. Also the battle in the Goblin lair, while a lot of fun, just seemed to go on forever. Bilbo's interaction with Gollum too seemed to drag a bit, I felt that scene could have been interspersed with the Dwarfs battling the Goblins just to change things up a bit
The CGI apart from Gollum was a big step down from the original. Problem compounded/highlighted by the HFR. Azog looked like he came out of a video game - after seeing the amazing practical effects heavy orcs in the original, that was a pretty glaring drop in quality/believability for me.
The Ugly I can't say enough about how silly and unnatural the HFR makes certain scenes look. Any shots of Bilbo walking about in the Shire at his home looked absolutely hilariously bad I have to say. Looked super sped up. So too did a LOT of the aerial panning shots, looked like the crane/helicopter was in a bit of a hurry most of the time.
In non-motion heavy scenes the HFR no doubt gives a really great sense of reality and that looking out the window kind of effect, so that's what it's got going for it on the + side. But when things start moving it really is bad. Looks worse than cheap TV films.
The Meh The score. There was the one main new theme which is the song the Dwarfs sing. It's a great theme and very memorable, but it re-occurs far too often for my liking. I was expecting there to be some more new stuff but most of it apart from that sounded like a re-tread of the original trilogy score.
Overall purely on the quality of the film, i'd give it a 8.5/10. Very good, very enjoyable. But not quite up to the originals. I understand this is not meant to be as epic a tale and the tone is meant to be different etc, but it doesn't make for as compelling a film, especially with what is IMO an over-stretched run-time.
Accounting for the HFR and CGI issues though, I would be forced to take my score down to an 8.