"All Middle Earth knows the tale of the War of the Ring, but there are other tales," begins the opening narration of animated film The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, taking a pre-emptively defensive tone to the value of its narrative. Expanded from brief elements in the appendices of author J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings trilogy, The War of the Rohirrim is the latest example of Hollywood's attempt to wring every possible bit of value from Tolkien's massively popular fantasy world despite the limited availability of source material.
The War of the Rohirrim never feels like anything more than a footnote, though. The belabored efforts to tie this anime to director Peter Jackson's hit live-action The Lord of the Rings film trilogy from 20-plus years ago only make it seem even paltrier in comparison. The narration comes from actor Miranda Otto, who is credited as her Lord of the Rings character Eowyn, even though there's nothing in the film itself to indicate that it's Eowyn telling the story.
Set 183 years before the events of The Lord of the Rings, The War of the Rohirrim features no hobbits or elves or dwarves, and only a brief appearance from orcs, in a particularly clunky moment of fan service. Rather than an epic tale of good versus evil with the fate of the entire realm at stake, it's the story of a regional skirmish between rivals for the throne of Rohan, a human kingdom ruled by the impressively named Helm Hammerhand (Brian Cox).
Challenged by the upstart Lord Freca (Shaun Dooley), Helm participates in a duel that leads to Freca's death, with Freca's banished son Wulf (Luke Pasqualino) vowing revenge. Years later, Wulf has raised an army of his own, which he commands in battle against Helm's forces for the throne of Rohan. Wulf's real opponent, though, is Helm's headstrong daughter Héra (Gaia Wise), who's constantly sidelined by her father in favor of her less formidable brothers, and who was once Wulf's childhood playmate.
Eventually, Héra rallies the troops of Rohan against Wulf's forces, but first she has to endure a marriage proposal, a kidnapping, and lots of scolding from her father — a full parade of worn-out fantasy tropes. While it's true that Tolkien essentially invented the building blocks of the fantasy genre, that doesn't make them any less tiresome here, especially as enacted by such bland, uninteresting characters. Héra is less distinctive than something a Dungeons & Dragons player might hastily draw up last-minute before a gaming session.
Thanks to the complicated licensing situation of Tolkien's work, only Warner Bros. has the rights to produce theatrical feature films based on his characters, but The War of the Rohirrim has big straight-to-video energy, with underwhelming animation supervised by director Kenji Kamiyama. Kamiyama is an anime veteran who previously worked on the anime-style Blade Runner: Black Lotus series, and The War of the Rohirrim comes off more like Netflix's second-tier fantasy adjacent adaptations of franchises like The Witcher than a major new installment from one of Hollywood's biggest brands.
Theoretically, the freedom of animation should allow Kamiyama to cut loose with wild fantasy creatures and locations that would be prohibitively expensive to realize in live action, but most of The War of the Rohirrim takes place in dingy castles and fortresses, with human characters in basic armor. Early in the film, there's a scene featuring a Lovecraftian tentacled swamp monster that hints at the expansive possibilities of the medium, but that's quickly discarded in favor of generic swordfights.
Watching Jackson's The Lord of the Rings films for the first time felt like discovering an entire new world, created from the boundless imaginations of both the author and the filmmaker. Watching The War of the Rohirrim feels like reading a line item on a studio's budget breakdown, with every box on the "franchise extension" checklist dutifully covered — no imagination necessary.
The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim
