Let me start by disclosing that, while a fan, I am no Lord of the Rings connoisseur – that’s to say, I am unfamiliar with all the deep cuts/lore of Tolkien’s exuberant world. Yet even I could tell that Kenji Kamiyama’s The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim (how about that mouthful of a title) feels like a minor addition to the LOTR canon. Did this particular story need to be told, especially in this way?
Produced by Warner Brothers animation, in an anime-slash-rotoscope-slash-CGI style, the film’s development was fast-tracked to retain rights to Tolkien’s property – and it’s glaringly obvious at times. Characters seem unfinished, the visual styles clash, and, despite the bloated two-hour-plus running time, the whole thing feels rushed. That being said, TLOTR: TWOTR is not without its redeeming qualities.
Miranda Otto, reprising her role as Éowyn from the original trilogy, narrates the tale. Set almost two centuries before the events of The Lord of the Rings, the plot follows Héra (voiced by Gaia Wise), the king’s daughter, “wild, headstrong and free,” who “learned to ride a horse before she could walk.” Her story has never been told, you see (and the question of whether it needed to be told remains).
“…a giant mammoth-like creature gets devoured by an even more gargantuan beast with trees growing out of its head…”
Héra refuses to marry old friend and sweetheart Wulf (Luke Pasqualino), which leads to her father, Helm Hammerhand (Brian Cox), a king who’s “never lost a battle”, accidentally killing Wulf’s father, Dunlending Lord Freca (Shaun Dooley), with one blow. Consequently, Wulf gets banished and vows vengeance. Seasons pass before his army surrounds Helm’s kingdom of Rohan. A gravely injured Helm witnesses the murder of one of his offspring; trauma and anger overtake him (“it is his mind that is broken”). It is now up to Héra to hold her people together and protect Rohan against Wulf’s relentless onslaught.
Kamiyama stages rousing, suspenseful sequences: Mumak, a giant mammoth-like creature gets devoured by an even more gargantuan beast with trees growing out of its head (f**k yeah!); Héra barely makes it out of Wulf’s heavily-guarded empire by horse; Héra asks the Great Eagle for help, after scaling some insane cliffs… not to mention all the masterfully-staged battle sequences, the filmmaker displaying a keen knowledge of ratcheting up suspense.
At well over two hours, however, TLOTR: TWOTR is way too long, hindered by lengthy stretches of clunky dialogue (although the voice actors do their best). The animation is on-and-off, at times inspiring awe (all the backgrounds, the aforementioned battles, the beasties), and at others confusion (all the choppiness and the rote, blank lead characters). The plot is quite straightforward but still somehow overstuffed with s**t happening.
Too much thought has been put into this one to write it off as a mere, well, write-off. But it’s also too slap-dash to be labeled a classic, nowhere near on par with Peter Jackson’s original trilogy. A curiosity then, worth checking out, especially for the devoted.
"…a curiosity then, worth checking out, especially for the devoted."
