The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim Review

The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim opens in theaters Friday, December 13.

We’ve come to expect certain things from adaptations of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. They’ll look a certain way. The characters will sound a certain way. The stories themselves will be influenced by everything from grungy B-horror movies to Norse myths. The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, however, boldly proposes a new direction. Set in the same cinematic universe as Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings and Hobbit trilogies (even using some of the same music cues and set designs), it’s an anime movie instead of a live-action feature. Yet, despite the epic feel and melodramatic tone that Tolkien’s work shares with the best series and films made in the style, The War of the Rohirrim fails to justify why this particular tale needed to be told as an anime. Action-packed as it is, it doesn’t make the case for future Lord of the Rings animations of any kind.

Even the opening narration is hesitant. When Éowyn (voiced once more by Miranda Otto) introduces us to the strong-willed protagonist Héra, she admonishes: “Do not look for tales of her in the old songs.” Meaning, little of what you are about to see is actually taken from the annals of Middle-earth history. Which is fine! But it betrays a lack of confidence in the material that the rest of The War of the Rohirrim tries its best to overcome, recycling key phrases (“Crebain from Dunland!” “Forth, Eorlingas!”) and familiar sights (a charging oliphaunt, an 11th-hour cavalry rescue) that only reminded me of movies I wished I were watching instead. Even the wizard Saruman (with archival dialogue from the late Christopher Lee) appears briefly in an attempt to recapture some of that original trilogy magic.

It’s certainly interesting, and at times even exciting. Héra – an invention for the movie, as Tolkien’s legendarium is not overflowing with Strong Female Characters – is the only daughter of the legendary king of Rohan, Helm Hammerhand (Brian Cox, who was born to give a rousing speech before a mounted charge). Their vast kingdom is threatened by a usurper from the eastern lands who wants control of the throne, a conflict that pushes the citizens of Rohan’s capital into the mountain stronghold of the Hornburg. If the name “Hornburg” sounds familiar, well, it’s because we’re basically just watching The Two Towers’ Battle of Helm’s Deep all over again, only this time it’s so we can find out how the place got its name.

If you find that interesting, great! If not, well, that’s just what everything is now. The War of the Rohirrim takes the details that make Middle-earth feel so real and fleshed out and stretches them into thin plots of their own. Like so many of today’s prequel movies and TV shows, it merely exists to explain things, even things we don’t really wonder all that much about. Why is Helm’s Deep called Helm’s Deep? There was a guy named Helm. There’s a cool horn named after him, too. Now that you know that, care to watch 16-plus hours of a Prime Video series that pretends like you don’t recognize Gandalf when you see him?

And while it’s nice to see something legitimately hand-drawn receive a theatrical release, the animation in The War of the Rohirrim doesn’t serve the project particularly well. Director Kenji Kamiyama is an anime legend who’s worked in the worlds of Star Wars, Blade Runner, and Ghost in the Shell, so he’s capable of guiding a story like The War of the Rohirrim through this sort of format. But the film calls out for a style much more dynamic than what it’s given by studio Sola Animation. The animation, while very beautiful in static images, is choppy in motion, with seemingly the absolute minimal amount of frames that can still convey onscreen movement. The visuals become especially difficult to track once the movie gets to the sword fighting and the galloping horses – the latter of which are famously difficult to animate, and don’t look great here. The result is something that might pass muster on a TV, but not for more than two hours in a movie theater.

Honestly, I sound madder than I am. I didn’t hate The War of the Rohirrim, and I think other open-minded fans may even like it. It’s an interesting idea, and a pretty good story. But, unlike the Lord of the Rings trilogy, I don’t think I’ll ever feel the need to watch this one again.