Odd, my experience was exactly the opposite. For me, 3D HFR was a totally immersive experience. It felt like the action was happening right in front of me, on a stage.
Bear in mind, I cannot stand those TVs that double the frame rate to make everything look like a cheap soap opera. I've heard this comparison, or ones like it, in almost every negative review I've read. In my opinion, this is false comparison.
Imagine if soap operas were filmed in colour, and proper films shot in black and white. Then a film maker comes along and releases a colour film. Suddenly everyone says it looks like a cheap soap opera. To me this is the psychological effect that is hindering the acceptance of HFR and thus the negative reviews.
Ten years from now our children will scoff at our luddism.
What's interesting to me (for background, before I ended up programming I trained in traditional film/animation) is that a lot of the 24/48fps discussion on HN tends to be around technical concerns, whereas a lot of film developments come out of artistic needs.
HFR is really interesting when contextualized in the history of cinema: frame rate was never a problem until directors started changing how they shot action scenes in the 1980s. It was realised that if you made the action fast and blurry you could get away with a lot more: what from a wide shot would look like a slow moving car chase could become a very dramatic action scene.
I think this is being reflected in a lot of the reviews coming out for The Hobbit (I haven't seen it yet): it seems a lot of people don't mind it during action sequences, but it becomes distracting during dialog and less frenetic moments. And this makes sense: why should dialog scenes be in 48fps? There's no technical or artistic reason for them to be.
I'd be really interested in watching a cut of The Hobbit which moves between 24 and 48 fps for dialog/action: people are happy to accept aspect ratio shifts (like moving from full-frame IMAX to CinemaScope in the Dark Knight, etc, and more artistically moving to Academy for a particular scene in Life of Pi), perhaps they'd be willing to accept frame rate shifts too?
Bear in mind, I cannot stand those TVs that double the frame rate to make everything look like a cheap soap opera. I've heard this comparison, or ones like it, in almost every negative review I've read. In my opinion, this is false comparison.
Imagine if soap operas were filmed in colour, and proper films shot in black and white. Then a film maker comes along and releases a colour film. Suddenly everyone says it looks like a cheap soap opera. To me this is the psychological effect that is hindering the acceptance of HFR and thus the negative reviews.
Ten years from now our children will scoff at our luddism.