Following the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, which was created down to every frame and Hobbit hair for the big screen, “The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim.
The film, set 183 years before the events of “The Hobbit,” is a return to Middle-earth that, despite some very serious storytelling, never offers much of an answer as to why it actually exists. Is.
“Rohirrim”, which sounds somewhat like the sound of an orc sneezing, is perhaps best understood as a placeholder for further extrapolations from JRR Tolkien’s books to the cinematic universe. Here, the thin basis in Tolkien comes from the “Lord of the Rings” appendix, which lists the history of Rohan, the plains kingdom south of the Elven forest of Lothlorien.
A small army of screenwriters – Jeffrey Addis, Will Matthews, Phoebe Gittins and Artie Papageorgiou – have created a fiery war film from the faded embers that director Kenji Kamiyama has adapted into anime form. The clearly talented Kamiyama has crafted some dazzling vintage anime scenes that – and perhaps it’s not all bad – feel a world apart from Peter Jackson’s Middle-earth features.
But “The War of the Rohirrim” also clearly feels closer to a 1990s direct-to-video release than a successor to some of the grandest big-screen fantasy stories of the last 25 years. Although there are many – many – examples of Hollywood over-mining once-rich intellectual property, this dull, appendix-extracted anime doesn’t add up to a particularly Tolkienist tradition.
However, staunch Tolkien supporters can be grateful for whatever fragments of “The Lord of the Rings” they can find. And there are some examples. Before Jackson produced Middle-earth in New Zealand, “The Lord of the Rings” inspired a 1970s animated TV special and a lesser-remembered 1978 animated film.
The “War of the Rohirrim” relates the adventures of Hera, daughter of the Rohan king Helm Hammerhand. Cox, coming off of “Succession”, again finds himself in trouble over the future of his throne.
Things begin when Fricka, leader of the Dandelings, offers her son Wolf to marry Hera and take the throne. After a quick refusal, a fight ensues, and with just one punch, Helm accidentally kills Freeka. Given how extreme Wolf’s vengeance is after this punch, it’s fair to wonder whether the “War of the Rohirrim” could have so easily been started with a slap or, perhaps, an overly aggressive noogie.
But only self-seriousness reigns in this “Lord of the Rings” adventure. When battle begins, Hera must save her people, which she attempts by retreating into a fortress dug into a hill. The story of Hera is said to have been lost to history in its earliest descriptions, but the “War of the Rohirrim” is an origin story for the citadel that would later be known as Helm’s Deep.
I wouldn’t begrudge any Tolkien buff a recreation of the anime – and perhaps these references and callbacks will be enough to convey some of the majesty of the books or Jackson’s films. You can tell that “Rohirrim” was created with true faith in the world Tolkien created. But I found connective tissue, like some notes of Howard Shore’s original score floating around, only reinforcing how such grand film ambitions once came to Rohan. ‘The War of the Rohirrim’ manages to recapture one characteristic of the previous films: at 134 minutes, it’s long.
New Line release “The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim” is rated PG-13 for strong violence by the Motion Picture Association. Running time: 134 minutes. One and a half stars out of four.
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