3D HFR version - tries very hard to imitate but fails on several levels

Rating: 7/10 (20 December 2012)

I LOVE LOVE LOVE Peter Jackson and the LOTR series. Maybe that's why I was pretty much disappointed when I walked out of The Hobbit yesterday night, seeing it in 3D HFR on a huge screen.
Let me explain why. First, right from the start you will see that the movie has the exact same sequence like LOTR. There is about 30 minutes of pre-story (maybe good for another prequel), introduction of the characters and then the preparation for the journey starts and they are off.
However, where the LOTR movies give you a sense of greatness, scale, the yin and yang of middle earth and different angles on the different characters, this movie tries to narrow down and concentrate too much on a handful of characters which never ever leave the scene.
Second, although the cartoony hyper-realistic visuals are absolutely breathtaking (I make 3D animations for a living) there is a BIG HUGE problem ...... a ridiculously shallow depth-of-field. Every time a character or scene is in frame, the foreground and background are extremely blurry. This creates a very flat image without any sense of depth, surely cool with 3D glasses because the actual subject is floating in space but way too much in-your-face because that's the only thing you will see. It kept distracting me because 90% of our vision is peripheral and it really brings the movie down. I need to see the non-3D version and I hope they get rid of this in the blu-ray release.
Third, Peter should not have 'solved' the little mysteries that are present in the LOTR like where does the the elvish blade come from that Bilbo gave to Frodo or repeat scenes like Gandalf talking to an insect to call the Eagles. Also there is no single mention of the origin of Gollum, or the ring, or who was sauron, it's just there. If you would see this movie without ever having seen the LOTR you would have no idea what half of the stuff is about and be completely lost.
Last, although a fun movie to watch, it's nowhere near as good as any of the 3 LOTR movies. It tries too hard to imitate, fails to keep the audience interested (people started talking and wandering around in the theater) and the ending was way too abrupt. Nobody clapped afterwards or hung out to see if there is maybe a spoiler at the end, everybody just left.