‘The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim’ Movie Review – Spotlight Report
Fans of Peter Jackson‘s adaptation of The Lord of the Rings weren’t generally thrilled with his extremely bloated Hobbit films, nor were they wild about the Rings of Power TV series that Amazon put out. When it was announced that Kenji Kamiyama was rushed to make an animated version of one of Tolkien’s footnotes to maintain New Line’s rights to the series, there was a mix of cynicism and genuine interest in finally seeing Middle Earth in anime form.
The footnote in question is the tale of Helm Hammerhand (Brian Cox), a king of Rohan hundreds of years before Frodo set out to destroy the one ring, and his daughter Héra (Gaia Wise). When Helm makes an enemy of the Dunlending leader Wulf (Luke Pasqualino), Dunland and Rohan go to war and Héra is forced to prove herself in a leadership role.
The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim certainly looks good, with beautiful backgrounds that keep strong continuity with the Jackson films. The animation is definitely Japanese in style, with the stylised faces and bodies that implies. There is a pervasive feeling of hurried production to the animation itself, with a low, jerky frame-rate in some action scenes, but it maintains enough consistency that it doesn’t jar. Kamiyama‘s got nothing to be ashamed of here. The music by Stephen Gallagher is a continuation of Howard Shore’s original themes and works well with the visuals. The voice work is good, although the performers aren’t specifically voice actors and don’t always bring the creative, colourful edge that animation requires. It immediately makes one wonder if there’s a Japanese dub floating around out there that might make a subtitled version more fun.
The story is about as close as you can get to rehashing the original Rohan elements from the main Lord of the Rings story, with a despondent king sending half of his soldiers away in a fit of rage, a climactic battle in Helm’s Deep with a triumphant charge at the end. There are some great moments, especially with Helm living up to his “Hammerhand” sobriquet. There’s plenty of action, and some of the dramatic elements are surprisingly gritty and affecting.
If you’re wondering if the film justifies its existence, it does. It’s a decent bit of animated entertainment that will likely excite younger audiences and satisfy adult ones and, if you’re wondering, fans of Tolkien really needn’t worry about ruined canon or anything like that. You get some tasteful animation, a rousing score and some big action setpieces. It’s not exceptional, but it’s definitely worth a look.
