Directed By Kenji Kamiyama

Starring – Brian Cox, Gaia Wise, Miranda Otto

The Plot – Set 183 years before the events chronicled in the original trilogy of films, it tells the fate of the House of Helm Hammerhand, the legendary King of Rohan. A sudden attack by Wulf (Luca Pasqualino), a clever and ruthless Dunlending lord seeking vengeance for the death of his father, forces Helm (Cox) and his people to make a daring last stand in the ancient stronghold of the Hornburg-a mighty fortress that will later come to be known as Helm’s Deep. Finding herself in an increasingly desperate situation, Héra (Wise), the daughter of Helm, must summon the will to lead the resistance against a deadly enemy intent on their total destruction.

Rated PG-13 for strong violence

The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim | Official Trailer

POSITIVES

Attempting to equal or even surpass the original live action Lord of the Rings trilogy, which is considered by many to be one of the greatest trilogies of all time, is downright ridiculous, so I was thankful to hear that this installment is an animated one of anime renderings, which imbeds a refreshing artistic direction to this ages old franchise. While the idea of illustrating Lord of the Rings in anime form is a strange one, the results with the animation are mostly pleasant, particularly in articulating the fantastical elements of this world, which don’t have to rely on lukewarm C.G to conjure their impressively titanic visuals. Beyond this, the animation elicits a boldly emotive quality that hits on an emotional level where the performances sometimes go streakily inconsistent, with watery eyes and subtle shaking illustrating the anger, sadness and triumph of conflicted characters, without feeling over the top in how faithfully the frames focus persistently on them. In addition to vibrantly intoxicating animation, the production’s decision to balance composer Stephen Gallagher’s epically urgent instrumentals with Howard Shore’s iconic score from the original trilogy comes with an emotional undertow of a current that tenderly tiptoes on our nostalgia, albeit without simply recycling those familiar tones. Gallagher’s work on its own merits are very worthy of this massive undertaking, with thunderously rampant consistencies of an army of horns and 808 drums inspiring the scope and scale of this power altering war, but beyond that a rich elasticity to interpretation that simultaneously caters to the complexity of emotions from each side of the struggle, with the sights and sounds of the presentation married seamlessly for an experience that tenderly tickles all of the senses. Speaking of living up to an immense shadow, this ensemble mostly rises to the occasion, with Cox and Wise capitalizing on a majority of the narrative’s focus shuffling off unlimited opportunities to make these characters their own. In the case of Cox’s Helm, we get all of the regality and imposing stature of a leader of the throne, but with an equally gripping element of sincerity while interacting with loved and respected ones that outlines the connection that he garners to his people, in turn outlining an immense shadow that both Helm and Cox share on their irreplaceable presences to this production. As for Gaia Wise, a complete lack of evolution to her character’s general outline doesn’t wither the unblemished effects of unloading so much emotional heft to the vulnerability of this character, especially during some unforeseen losses that completely deconstruct her world. When the time comes for Hera to rise as a leader, Wise punctuates the delivery of every inspirational speech to her limitedly surrounding parties, and though she’s often outnumbered, the fearlessness and resiliency that Gaia submits to the character is the one impenetrable shied to her portrayal. Lastly, while this is a story that takes place 183 years before the events that came to be known as The Return of the King, the script from as many as four different screenwriters does a sensible job of dropping enough breadcrumbs in tying the respective worlds together, even at the sacrifice of too many remember berries threatening its peaceful existence. Thankfully, the surprise cameos and honorable mentions go few and far between this 130-minute run time, as the time spent without them does grant a deeper insight into the power struggles that overcame so much of Middle Earth during the Third Age, and as a result the film not only justifies its existence by focusing the story so far away from where those heralded films took place, but also finds clever ways in articulating the similarities in the thirst for power between forsaking parties that dooms those unable to learn from history, a hinderance that even we can unfortunately relate to on so many levels.

NEGATIVES

Not everything goes according to plan with this newest addition to The Lord of the Rings franchise, and the things that ultimately come to define it are those that often conflicted with the integrity of my engagement, all of which can be blamed on a lack of creativity to both the story and its characters. On the former, this is another example of a revenge story narrative that follows so many of the familiar beats that we’ve come to expect from these kinds of movies, especially (And I don’t feel that this is spoilers to anyone who has watched the trailer) in a powerful family gets invaded, an unforeseen betrayal, one of them dies, and another one of them maps out their path to vengeance. This leaves very little surprises to what transpired in the film, but beyond that proves how little effort was paid to this entirely new story that isn’t based on any of the Tolken novels, with nothing in the way of even slight diversion to cement its own stamp of identity on this tediously repetitive framing device. As for the characters, I don’t think I’m surprising anybody when I say that nobody in this film holds a candle to the legion of fascinating characters in the original trilogy, especially that of Hera, who so much of the film’s focus is spent following. One could easily blame this in the limited opportunities to one two hour film verses nearly nine hours of film to that trilogy, but development outside of their royalty labels comes so few and far between the depths of the engagement, and as a result I didn’t have as much of an emotional investment in their conflicts as I rightfully should’ve, which keeps so many of these monumental scenes and sequences grounded without a shred of palpable impact. Considering this is a 130-minute film, I could’ve used more time spent away from the primary conflict to flesh out a deeper sense of conscience and transformation to Hera’s arc, who is often defined by what others need her to be, instead of the person inside who she actually. The film is also far too long, with an unnnecessary abundance of excessive baggage that starts to stack as quickly as the beginning of the film’s second act. I should make clear that I’m referring to the first of the movie’s two second acts, as the long-winded middle section of this film drowns on for what feels like hours, with so many of these individualized scenes feeling capable of being compressed together or downright omitted from the finished product, in order to attain an abridged 90-minute engagement that would’ve transpired some much needed urgency to the many developments associated with this invasion. The first and third acts aren’t as crucially paced and structured as this middle section, as even when the script began motioning towards this inevitable war, I realized that I still had an hour left in the film, which even as a surface level fan of the original trilogy, at best, I never experienced with those movies.

OVERALL
‘The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim’ is a beautifully illustrated and well-acted addition to the franchise, even as one that is ultimately conflicted by an overall lack of creativity and characterization that could’ve taken pressure away from an overlong engagement. For any Rings enthusiast, the film should offer enough nostalgia and charms to inspire anyone to whisk themselves away once more to Middle Earth, as long as they accept the fact that this is nowhere near the kind of quality of the original trilogy or ‘The Hobbit’ series that each orchestrated something integral to Tolken’s novels.

My Grade: 6/10 or C