Le Seigneur des Anneaux : La Guerre des Rohirrim

The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim (2024) : Movie Review -

We are all die-hard fans of Peter Jackson's "The Lord of the Rings" film trilogy and somewhat of "The Hobbit" trilogy. Let's just forget Prime Video's failed attempts for now. Kenji Kamiyama's tale is a prequel to Jackson's trilogy, but it's an "anime," and don't you worry, it has enough content. The problem arises in the scale, which can never be large for an animated feature, and since we have seen Jackson's gigantic sequences, the scale of this film looks quite small in comparison. The film still manages to keep things interesting in the first half, but then it lacks enough material to maintain the same momentum in the second half. Every LOTR film previously had one large-scale action sequence in the climax, and this film lacks that essential element! It's totally UNACCEPTABLE.

Set 183 years before the events of Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings film trilogy (2001-2003), The War of the Rohirrim tells the story of Helm Hammerhand (voiced by Brian Cox), a legendary king of Rohan, and his family as they defend their kingdom. Helm's daughter, Hera (Gaia Wise), is young and brave and has no thoughts of marriage, yet the matter is openly discussed, and Wulf (Luke Pasqualino) proposes to her. Both she and her father reject the proposal, leaving Wulf's father enraged. He is killed by Helm, and then Wulf forms an army to seek revenge. Hera is kidnapped but saved, and then Helm is trapped and mortally wounded during a war. As winter approaches, will Hera be able to defeat the coward Wulf?

Jeffrey Addiss, Will Matthews, Phoebe Gittins, and Arty Papageorgiou wrote a 130-minute film that features many slow moments. Jackson created almost four-hour-long epics, but they never felt slow or boring. Kenji made a two-hour film and still gave me enough time to take small naps. The first half of the film was indeed interesting, but the second half failed to provide enough support or content. Three back-to-back action sequences appeared in the first half, offering nice entertainment and keeping the film engaging. Two of them take place at night, making it too dark and leading to an unsatisfactory experience. With anime, things are slow, and dialogues come at a tortoise's pace; then you have to endure dark visuals-all of that is too much to handle. The eagles aren't utilized well, the climax lacks action, the middle portion contains too much drama that slows down the narrative, and last but not least, the predictability of the storyline sums up the verdict for you.

Brian Cox voices the hot-tempered King Helm, portraying the character as aggressive and macho. Gaia Wise as Hera was sweet, but as I mentioned, too many pauses between words make things seem childish. Luke Pasqualino has done a fabulous job as the voice artist for Wulf, while Miranda Otto, Lorraine Ashbourne, Shaun Dooley, Yazdan Qafouri, Benjamin Wainwright, and Laurence Ubong Williams provide excellent support. Technically, they are all spot-on for an anime production, but that also detracts from its human connection.

I am still pondering the mediocre sound design and art direction. LOTR implies colossal scale, but where is that in Rohirrim? LOTR requires a proper lineup of events, and this one is far from perfect. Now I just think back to the beginning of the story and realize that Helm could have easily killed Wulf, preventing all this from happening. Anyway, who is interested in watching such a cowardly villain? No principles, no rules, and no loyalty are acceptable, but where is the bravery? The visual effects are good, but the grandeur is lacking. That stupendous quality is clearly absent. Kenji Kamiyama's emotional arcs take too much time, and during that phase, we lose connection with the film as LOTR or action fans. The anime vision is still acceptable and should please anime enthusiasts. Less said is better; LOTR: The War of the Rohirrim gets the Rohirrim part right but forgets to focus on the "war" aspect. This is a decent film, but it falls short of its own potential and could have been much better.

RATING - 5/10*

The Rohirrim War unfortunately, the end result is a film that struggles to engage the viewer, offering a flat and predictable narrative.

The anime-style animation lacks depth and often appears confusing. The character designs also appear generic and unmemorable, failing to leave a mark on the hearts of viewers. The story, centered on the defense of Helm Hammerhand, is a wasted opportunity to explore the internal dynamics of Rohan. The narrative drags on wearily, lacking twists and moments of true emotion. The dialogues are often banal and repetitive, failing to convey the complexity of the characters and their motivations.

The film suffers from slow pacing and excessive length. Many sequences are unnecessary and artificially dilate the duration, boring the viewer. The lack of pace and memorable moments makes it difficult to remain involved in the story.

The lack of originality and courage in the narrative is the biggest flaw of this feature film.

"The Lord of the Rings: The Rohirrim War" is a film that disappoints on every level. The boredom, the flat plot and the uninspired animation make this film a disappointing experience for fans of the saga. A wasted opportunity to explore a fascinating period of Middle Earth.

The lesson here is that it is dangerous to monkey around with Tolkien. Unless you have something that will enhance the story, without mangling it, you will make a lot of people very angry, and angry people don't put their bums on cinema seats.

It is also not a good idea to make the characters do absurd things every 30 seconds or so. The audience are not going to react well to being faced with ridiculous, or improbable situations all the time. They will grumble to their friends about them, and those friends will decide not to bother seeing it.

I am a big anime fan. I think it's fantastic, and I watch a lot of it. It is NOT a good idea to have a film like this directed by an anime director. Anime has a different perspective to story telling. Another reviewer said that he found it strange that people just stand around when someone is in danger. Quite often that is the way that anime scenes are filmed. One defender, one attacker, or even when there is only one defender, and there are a lot of attackers. One attacker at a time, like they are taking turns.

Héra's costumes were frequently a little wrong for the same reason. The style was out of character with the universe it was in. There were also some ragged areas of the animation, where it looked like something from a decade or two ago.

I won't be watching it a second time.

The good thing is: animation is good and buitifully made.

All the rest is awfull. The plot is unbelievebly stupid and predictable at evey turn. It lacks any coherence and depth, grown man behave like five-years-old, the authors do not posses the essential minimum understanding of medieval warfare to make the audience take the battles a bit seriously.

The pratagonist is a Mery Sue to the extreme, she is the smartest, the fastest, the bravest and the strongest, she always have the best solution to any tactical or political problem. Well, actually her ideas are naive and shallow, but all the rest on the set are so incredibly dumb that hers seems to pass.

The movie is a waste if time, it comes nothing near the original and just rides on its name.

This movie is based on a one-page story (mostly) about Helm Hammerhand from Appendix A of the LoTR book (which is a pretty nice read btw). The book's dialogue and events are actually kept to quite an extent, with only minor alterations in detail. The film does an especially good job capturing the epic character of Helm Hammerhand, as depicted in the books. However Hera, introduced in the movie, is not in the books at all and some of her deeds are actually done in the original work by her cousin, Fréaláf.

What many people like about Tolkien's universe is its pre-industrial, simple world, where this simplicity highlights the theme of human nature/values and the moral order of the universe. In the 'classic' movies there is a lot of wisdom hidden in everyday conversations, like "All we have to do is decide what to do with the time given to us" (LoTR) or "It is the small things, everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep darkness at bay" (Hobbit), which I would say are timeless truths about our world, and these are lines I think about sometimes even after the movie ends.

However, this movie has nothing to add in this front. It introduces modern issues (feminism), into Tolkien's world in a way that feels both foreign and forced, ultimately undermining both Tolkien's vision and the cause of feminism it seeks to support. It's not as bad as RoP, but still shows. Of course it's not about that women can't do any of the things depicted in the movie, or that the book should be followed exactly. It's just that it's not guided purely by the love of Tolkien's work and legacy, and it really shows.

But besides that, it's not a terrible movie. I would say it's worth a watch.