The Hobbit VFX

I've always been a fan of the Lord of the Rings films so was ridiculously excited to see the Hobbit and, once I did, I really enjoyed it. 

However I was torn between the use of animation and VFX in the film. On one side I loved Gollum and thought his facial animation was incredibly well done. It is immediately forgotten that he is CGI since his character is so powerful and expressionate, causing the 'Riddles in the Dark' section of the film to feel more like a play between two actors rather than a man and something computer generated. On the other hand though, CG seems to be heavily relied upon on the film for extra characters. This creates a clear difference in tone between The Hobbit film and the Lord of the Rings as the first feels thinner in texture due to it's lack of extras (in which the latter had many).

Peter Jackson has said that the vast amount of extras in the LOTR trilogy was due to lack of technology able to produce the creatures at the time, now that this technology has advanced he is able to have the goblins etc. animated and therefore act less human than before. Though this allows a larger chance to create less humanoid creatures I think it causes a clear gap between the actors playing the dwarves and what they are interacting with causing the picture to look a little cheaper.