The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim (2024) Review: An Anime Prequel That Misses the Mark

I have bad feelings after watching the first trailer for The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim a few months ago in August. Those feelings stemmed from the questionable animation quality and the introduction of a supposedly unnamed Helm’s daughter taken from Tolkien’s appendices, which is given the name Héra and becomes the main protagonist of this anime prequel to The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Or more specifically, a prequel to The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers — Peter Jackson’s middle chapter in the second movie of the trilogy that contains the extended sequence set in Helm’s Deep around the two-hour mark, where the King of Rohan, Théoden (Bernard Hill, who passed away this year) vacates the capital city of Edoras along with his soldiers and his people to seek refuge in the fortress of the Hornburg at the aforementioned fortified gorge.

This is where The War of the Rohirrim comes in, taking us way back to 183 years before the events of Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy to delve into the legendary story surrounding the Helm’s Deep. The Helm in question refers to Helm Hammerhand (voiced by Brian Cox), the fearsome king of Rohan at the time. He has an adult daughter named Héra (Gaia Wise), a free-spirited redhead who isn’t particularly interested in settling down as a married woman.

When the local Dunlending lord Freca (Shaun Dooley) proposes a politically-motivated marriage between his son Wulf (Luca Pasqualino) and Héra, where the two used to be childhood friends, the meeting quickly goes awry. A single, lethal punch from Helm during a subsequent fistfight against Freca resulted in a tragedy, with the angry Wulf determined to vow revenge against the kingdom of Rohan.

This isn’t the first time Tolkien’s otherwise male-dominated Middle-earth universe has been given a feminist spin after Prime Video casts Morfydd Clark as the main protagonist Galadriel in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power two seasons ago. Now, on paper, the red-haired Héra is the epitome of a fiercely independent warrior woman who knows how to fight and defends herself but tries as hard as Gaia Wise may in her voice performance, her character arc throughout The War of the Rohirrim isn’t that interesting to begin with. Instead, her Héra character is rather disappointingly generic as if she exists directly from the assembly line of a standard-issue “strong-willed and tough girl” template.

It’s a pity the movie botches the potential of developing a strong arc between Héra and Wulf from their childhood past as friends to become enemies in their adulthood following a marriage rejection and a certain death, which leads to the titular war consumed by revenge and hatred.

The movie has four screenwriters — Jeffrey Addiss, Will Matthews, Phoebe Gittins and Arty Papageorgiou — in charge of the story and while I appreciate a refreshing change of pace of focusing the internal conflicts between the Men (Rohan against the Dunlendings) that almost devoid of fantastical elements, the would-be compelling personal and dramatic stakes feel rather lacklustre. Sure, there are plenty of battles and one-on-one sword duel but the action lacks a much-needed visceral flair and palpable tension that made Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy such a rousing spectacle. Even the mixed-bag Hobbits trilogy has a fair share of thrillingly staged set pieces.

The biggest problem in The War of the Rohirrim lies in its jarring mix of 2D and 3D animation, which makes me feel like it was a rushed job and should belong to a straight-to-streaming Max release instead of a major theatrical release. It doesn’t even come close to the distinct Studio Ghibli-style of hand-drawn animation, especially given the overall stiff expressions seen in the characters and sometimes awkward movements during its few fast-paced sequences. However, the animation looks the best when it’s static in the background.

It’s not like Kenji Kamiyama, the director behind the TV’s Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex and Blade Runner: Black Lotus lacks ambition as he does showcase some nifty camerawork, namely the sweeping bird’s-eye shot of the opening sequence that captures the vast landscape and scenic backdrops. And yet, I’m surprised this movie being animated would have allowed Kamiyama more creative freedom to elevate The War of the Rohirrim in terms of its visual spectacle, only to end up with a half-realised result.

The movie’s 134-minute length tends to suffer from a sluggish pace and frankly, the only character that excels the most is Brian Cox’s commanding voice performance as Helm Hammerhand to the point I wish he should have led The War of the Rohirrim instead. Stephen Gallagher does a decent job incorporating some of Howard Shore’s themes into his music score.

The War of the Rohirrim doesn’t forget to cater to obligatory fan services notably, Miranda Otto returning to the world of Tolkien as Éowyn narrating the movie and a certain character from the trilogy. So much for the big-screen return to Tolkien’s universe, the first in a decade since The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies in 2014.