The rather numerous negative professional reviews almost made me lose hope. Turns out they were wrong. The Hobbit is a fantastic film.

Rating: 9/10 (13 December 2012)

First of all, let me first say that while I enjoyed the LOTR trilogy, and admired the directorial and technical greatness of it, I'm no LOTR fanboy, and I also recognize its flaws. I'm saying this so that one understands that I'm not the type of person who will blindly speak greatly of any film of the Tolkien/Jackson series if I don't feel it deserves it.
This being said, I have difficulties understanding some of the negative professional reviews which said The Hobbit is a failed attempt, and not as good as LOTR. The artistic and directing style are exactly the same (so I won't comment on this more). I also wasn't expecting to like the 48 fps since I'm the kind of guy who squints even at high definition TVs, but surprisingly, I thought it looked great in The Hobbit, and I think 48 fps is the future. There are slow moments in The Hobbit, broken regularly by excitingly over the top action scenes. Again, just like LOTR - so I don't see why one would like the original trilogy and not The Hobbit.
The Hobbit is perhaps a little less dark in tone than LOTR, considering the source material which is more of a children's book, but it's clearly not a children's movie anyway, and displays many exciting and stressful moments. It also offers something more than the LOTR, that is five genuinely important villains right then and there. The dragon Smaug, in this first film, is like Sauron in the LOTR. A distant, mysterious figure who is the ultimate goal of the quest, whom we don't see much of yet, but we know it's going to be brutal. The "necromancer" is mostly alluded. Those who know the book will know who that is, and he'll surely be important in the sequels. Azog, the giant orc, is a main villain and is much more appealing than the Uruk-hai chief in Fellowship of the Ring, or any other orc villain in the LOTR series. The Goblin King also has a strong key role in the movie. And of course, Gollum, who's riddle scene with Bilbo is fantastic.
Martin Freeman as Bilbo is superb and there couldn't be a better choice. The rest of the cast is pitch perfect as well. While the 13 dwarfs are too many for us to get to know each and every one of them well enough by the end of this first movie, I didn't feel it was a downer. We got to know at least a third sufficiently - and I'm sure we'll get to learn about and appreciate the rest in the subsequent films - this allows us to still have characters to discover later on.
Anyway, great film. I think it's better than Fellowship, and I'll be seeing it again for sure and can't wait for the sequels.