The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim
An ambitious anime adaptation of a J.R.R. Tolkien deep cut has style, but lacks the confidence it needs to stand on its own as a great story.
It’s hard to believe that for a long time, the only version of J.R.R. Tolkien’s stories on film was animated. Before the monumental live-action trilogy of 2001-2003, all we had were cartoon versions of “The Hobbit,” “The Lord of the Rings (just the first two-thirds),” and “The Return of the King” — made in the late ‘70s, respectively by Rankin/Bass (the folks who gave us “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”), Ralph Bakshi (the guy who gave us “Fritz the Cat”), and Rankin/Bass again. The results were somewhere between mediocre and dreadful, and fans of the books were left to hope that someday, a filmmaker would come along who could match the imagination on Tolkien’s pages.
(I first encountered Tolkien myself by seeing the Rankin/Bass “Hobbit” on TV when I was very young. I decided I didn’t like it very much, and only discovered what J.R.R. Tolkien’s work was all about a few years later, when my best friend told me I absolutely had to read “The Hobbit” and this other book called “The Lord of the Rings.” Thank goodness for that friend.)
Suffice it to say it’s a good thing Professor Tolkien – who despised Walt Disney’s animated features and wasn’t very interested in cinema in general – didn’t live to see any of these animated efforts. In any case, coming into the new feature “The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim,” which opens in theatres today, the bar to clear for animated Tolkien on the big screen is very, very low.
“The War of the Rohirrim” (the first part of the title is unnecessary but speaks to a bigger problem with this film’s identity) has one major thing going for it, though: It was produced under the supervision of Peter Jackson himself, along with his partner (in production and life) Fran Walsh. Jackson, in case anyone on the planet doesn’t know, directed the definitive screen versions of “The Lord of the Rings,” which are still regarded among the finest fantasy films of all time; as well as three installments of “The Hobbit,” which are long. There’s certainly no filmmaker more familiar with Middle-Earth than “PJ,” and his imprimatur gives this film a sense of legitimacy, plus some other practical benefits.
“The War of the Rohirrim” takes its story from the extensive Appendices to “The Lord of the Rings,” the additional hundred pages of material that Tolkien grafted to his already 1,000-page opus to provide context and added depth to the story. This tale comes from “The House of Eorl,” the history of the royal dynasty of the horse-warriors of Rohan. Its main character comes from just one line of the original text of the Appendix, from the section describing the great King Helm Hammerhand.
If that seems like a very small thing to base a story on, remember that Middle-Earth itself is mostly Tolkien’s imaginative extrapolation of intriguing names and story fragments he found in the ancient literature and languages he studied at Oxford. So, as with the Prime Video series “The Rings of Power,” also derived from these Appendices, I’m inclined to give the producers a little room to maneuver here.
It’s a good thing that “War of the Rohirrim” has chosen a self-contained story as its subject, as it leaves plenty of room for dramatic expansion, and could be free to be its own narrative without being too closely bound to the well-known story of “The Lord of the Rings.” This story takes place roughly two centuries before the events that lead to the War of the Ring get going, so there aren’t too many opportunities for linkages here in the first place, though there are clumsy efforts to create them anyway. These mostly amount to little more than name-checks and could easily have been left out. It’s the kind of reflexive self-reference we have come to expect from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but feels out of place here.
The far more meaningful connections to Middle-Earth for audiences come directly from the production influence of Peter Jackson — production design and music. Jackson’s film trilogy has become nearly as beloved as Tolkien’s books themselves, and for many, the visual world of Jackson’s “LOTR” simply is Middle-Earth. So when the camera opens on the familiar map of Middle-Earth, Rohan’s breathtaking hilltop capital of Edoras is right there in all its splendor, looking exactly as it did when it first appeared in 2002’s “The Two Towers” (except, of course, that it’s painted rather than photographed). Other familiar locales are re-created faithfully as well and will be instantly familiar even to the most casual fan.
Similarly, composer Stephen Gallagher weaves a new musical score around the thematic material established by Howard Shore’s operatic work on “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit.” (Gallagher worked closely with Shore as a music editor on “The Hobbit,” so he knows his way around Shore’s auditory rendition of Middle-Earth.) Wisely, he uses Shore’s original themes sparingly, dropping them in for effect at just the right times, then striking out to create his own themes using the same sonic palette. The combined effect of music and design creates instant goodwill for the audience. Stepping back into Middle-Earth after two decades feels like putting on an old favorite sweater – it just fits.
This turns out to be critically important, since of course “War of the Rohirrim” isn’t just animation but anime, a distinctly Japanese animation style that does not at all feel intuitive to pair with Tolkien’s very Northern European vibe. Grounding the visual and musical world in something instantly familiar helps bridge the East-West style gap that otherwise might prove more jarring. It probably would have taken much longer for me to get used to it without these elements.
The success of director Kenji Kamiyama’s application of anime style in general is somewhat uneven. It’s great for action scenes and sometimes produces thrilling and beautiful screen pictures with a handcrafted flair. It’s less effective for conveying dialogue and the range of emotional expression of the voice cast, as the range of facial expressions available to the characters can’t quite keep up. The tropes of anime character design in general don’t always serve the characters as written and acted, particularly the main character of Hèra (Gaia Wise). While other characters, particularly male, are given relatively realistic renderings, Hèra has the stereotypical features of an anime heroine – big, dewy eyes, thin nose, small mouth, and heart-shaped face. It seems somehow undignified for her character to be presented this way, when she’s written as a woman who defies gendered expectations.
But the ultimate test of any film, animated or otherwise, is how well it delivers the story. “War of the Rohirrim” cleaves pretty closely to the general contours of the story of Helm as written by Tolkien: Helm (Brian Cox), the battle-tested King of Rohan, is confronted by Freca (Shaun Dooley), an upstart wealthy warlord from the edges of his realm, who stubbornly defies his authority. Adding insult to injury, he insists that Helm’s daughter Hèra be given to his son Wulf (Luke Pasqualino) in marriage to unite their people. Helm is incensed and takes the argument outside, where he kills Freca with a single punch from his mighty hand — hence the epithet “Hammerhand.” Wulf is banished from Rohan, but returns later to avenge his father and salve his wounded pride at being spurned by Hèra, sparking a civil war that tears the realm apart.
This kind of drama, propelled by human jealousies and power struggles, is more grounded and visceral than the grand canvas of Good and Evil, Elves and Wizards that “The Lord of the Rings” paints on, and it is when “War of the Rohirrim” sticks to these human-scale elements that the story works most effectively. The proud King, the jilted lover, the faithful children, the conniving usurper: all of these are terrific hooks for drama. Still, the producers must have felt they had to remind us that we’re in a fantasy world, and manage to interpolate encounters with all manner of monsters and mythic creatures, not to mention some rather super-heroic anime combat maneuvers. Mûmakil (i.e., giant elephants)! Eagles! Orcs! A troll! A weird Lovecraftian lake monster like the one we last saw outside the gates of Moria! All these and more make appearances, and seldom do they feel like they fit the story especially well. I found myself often distracted by these creature interludes and impatient to get on with the real story.
The biggest story innovation is adding the character of Hèra, Helm’s hitherto unnamed daughter. “War of the Rohirrim” intentionally positions the story from her point of view, as a naturally adventurous and brave fighter who’s been mostly overlooked by her father and people because of her sex. In this respect she strongly resembles the character of Éowyn from “The Lord of the Rings” – who appears here as the story’s narrator, voiced by her original actor, Miranda Otto. In some respects she may be a little too similar to Éowyn, or any number of other less original warrior-woman characters, which have become a trope of their own. But she does have moments to define herself as a unique character, as when she points out the irony of all this fighting happening because of her, when nobody asked her opinion about it in the first place.
Hèra is perhaps strongest when interacting with two characters in particular. One is Helm, her father, with whom she shares a relationship that reminds me of Cordelia and King Lear — a faithful daughter whose embittered, regal father comes to appreciate her only when it’s too late. Brian Cox, who effortlessly projects majesty in his vocal performance, brings real vulnerability to this relationship, too. The other is her maidservant Olwyn (Lorraine Ashbourne), who connects her with the legendary history of the “shieldmaidens,” female warriors who defended Rohan when no one else could. She’s a useful voice of wisdom who adds dimension to the woman’s perspective that this story emphasizes, not to mention the closest thing this film gets to a sense of humor — the overall tone is pretty grim throughout.
Most of the other characters are unfortunately a little two-dimensional. Wulf is an irredeemable villain from start to finish, and though he has a couple of great dramatic moments, he mostly seems there to provide an antagonist who can be relied on to make the wrong choices at every turn. Even his own general (Michael Wildman) repeatedly points out that he’s an idiot, but he doubles down on destructive choices anyway. Hèra’s brothers and cousin Fréaláf (Laurence Ubong Williams), who (spoiler!) eventually becomes King, are stock Noble Princes, brave and earnest and not very exciting. The voice actors do what they can, but there isn’t a lot to work with.
“War of the Rohirrim’s” story also ultimately fails to rise above the predictable, and even though these events do happen more or less the way Tolkien outlined them in the source material, they could have been presented in a much more dramatically satisfying way. There are a few interesting twists, especially involving the mysterious appearance of the “wraith” of Helm Hammerhand who terrorizes the soldiers of Wulf’s army as they besiege the fortress of the Rohirrim (not yet called Helm’s Deep). But too often, “War” falls back on the familiar. Especially in the third act, the script borrows a few too many story beats from the siege of Helm’s Deep in the original novel and film — including one that’s nearly an exact copy of a climactic moment from “The Two Towers.”
I wish that Kamiyama and the screenwriting team could have spent a little more time bringing this main story to a more creative conclusion and a little less time shoe-horning monsters into the narrative. It would have helped the whole movie feel more like a unique story worth telling in its own right, instead of a movie that very much wants you to remember that it’s related to “The Lord of the Rings.” It’s not bad, but it doesn’t meet the standard of thrilling storytelling that Tolkien crafted with “The Lord of the Rings” in the first place, ironically by leaning too hard on its connection to that novel. It does easily surpass the previous animated versions of Tolkien, but it could have been so much more.