When I first watched the Hobbit, I didn't really notice any difference other than pan-intensive scenes didn't look as washed out. I don't recall thinking it was too lifelike or realistic. When I heard that it was because it had a higher framerate, I decided to start using frame interpolation via SVP[0] on my video player to artificially create more frames between each original frame, and I'm really happy. It isn't perfect, in some scenes there can be artifacts, but it mostly looks great. In action-packed fighting scenes you can finally see what's happening, and not just one big mush of colored abstracts.

I liked it so much that I even went out of my way to buy a TV that had a built-in frame interpolation that's been said to be better than most other high-end TVs.

[0]: https://www.svp-team.com/wiki/Main_Page