The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim: Movie Review

Vocal cast: Gaia Wise, Brian Cox, Luke Pasqualino, Miranda Otto
Director: Kenji Kamiyama

Set 183 years before The Lord of The Rings, the latest take on JRR Tolkien's work is an anime that's relatively big on spectacle, but low on emotional stakes despite the level of death taking place.

It's the story of Gaia Wise's Hera, a would-be Shieldmaiden of Rohan and the daughter of King Helm Hammerhand (voiced with Cox's towering belligerence) who finds herself caught in a battle of wills when a former friend Wulf turns against them.

After Wulf's father Freca is killed by a single strike from Hammerhand, he swears vengeance on their kingdom and threatens to tear them down systematically, plunging the region into the recesses of war and darker days.

Adapted from an appendix in the Lord of the Rings, the team of Phillippa Boyens and Peter Jackson do their best to turn a single page into a great film but what emerges from The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim is a distinct feeling of the very familiar and the very unimaginative too.

It's fine as a portrait of the damage done by toxic males, and offers a strong lead in Hera, but the lack of any real emotion on the characters' faces makes it difficult to engage with at any deeper level. It's hardly helped by the fact the film really doesn't offer the franchise anything new in terms of what it brings to the table, other than an origin story for Helm's Deep.

Tbere are however moments that work - Wise's work as Hera makes her feel like a heroine rather than a superhero stuck in the body of a normal person. Her inspiring approach to problem-solving and taking charge in a traditionally male-led environment does what it should.

Originally envisioned as a 90 minute film, The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim's bloat becomes apparent as it barrels towards its 2hr 10 minute run time. There's not enough to extend the story and it would have been a grander scale piece if perhaps its intimacy had been focused on and its scope cut back and edited.

As Miranda Otto's Eowyn says early on in the film, Hera's tale will not be mentioned in any future songs or ballads, and based on this, that's truly a shame - but in truth, it's possibly time to put the Tolkien world to rest for now, until someone can revolutionise the stories or bring them into the 21st century and beyond.