Just got back from my midnight showing. Simple 2D. It seems that if you went all out with the IMAX 3D or HFR 3D, you got a nifty poster at the door.
On one level, it feels like (and I'll going to get flack about this description) Peter Jackson's Phantom Menace. Yes The Hobbit is a children's story so I can see why a times it went for the cheap tween/pre-tween gag. On another level it feels like a reunion show (Return to Middle Earth). Look it's old Bilbo and Frodo. Look it Elron, Galadriel and Saruman. Then there's the sight seeing tour of some of the old haunts (look it's Rivendell ... shh, it's only a model). Toss in twenty minutes of far shots of real people walking on real landscapes and CGI people walking on CGI landscapes another twenty minutes of history lessons, the addition of The Doctor # 7 ... OK Radagast the Brown sequence with a hedgehog, well the movie drags at places. However the last half an hour or so is very exciting and somewhat intense for young ones.
Then you have the cast of Dwarves. Sorry as hard as I try it's to easy to remember some of them by only their signature characteristic. The Leader Thorin, the youngest one, the one with the fluffy white beard, the deaf one, the bowman, the bald one, the fat one , etc. Too many names, too much alike. At least with the 9 in LotR there was enough uniqueness to remember everyone, plus they were introduced at a much slower pace.
The movie ends BTW just after the eagles rescues everyone from the orcs.
Overall it was an OK film. Even though some of the humor I feel is directed at tweens and pre-tweens, the orc sequences are vary violent and potentially very scary for the young. That and the run time of 2 hours 40 minutes excluding the end credits isn't for the young set either.