I’ve just watched this over the last two nights and can only agree about the audio. I don’t fiddle with any eq stuff or have Atmos, so it’s just standard 5.1 for me, but this is the loudest film I can remember.
It was almost as if my sub couldn’t handle it and was shaking the doors and causing my missus and daughter upstairs to make several complaints
.
As for the PQ, I’m no expert, but although there were parts of the film which seemed to render a lot of detail ( especially close up shots), a great deal of the film did seem rather over smoothed out to me, with not a great deal of film like texture and looking more digital in nature.
I’ve read a lot that suggests this was the intention of Jackson to make them closer to the Hobbit trilogy and that would make sense having watched it. It’s a bit of a shame in a way, but it didn’t spoil it for me though as although I’m certainly not a grain hater, I don’t mind a little DNR and grain management. I just think they over did it in this case though, but I presume that has a lot to do with the special effects.
The HDR colour grading really makes the film shine though. It’s natural, rich and just pretty gorgeous all round really.