In the annals of modern action filmmaking, the Battle of Helm’s Deep—the big showstopper finale of Peter Jackson’s second Lord of the Rings film—is a hard act to beat. It’s such a rousing, triumphant setpiece, Jackson spent most of Return of the King searching for a way to top it himself. So now, twenty years removed from Jackson’s trilogy (to say nothing of his misguided Hobbit films), Warner Bros seems desperate to find a way to wring a few extra dollars out of one of their prized cash cows. Enter The War of the Rohirrim, an anime feature co-produced by Jackson’s Wingnut Films and Sola Entertainment that not only nestles itself within the canon of Jackson’s films, but also makes liberal use of its music and every scrap of identifiable iconography it can reasonably justify.
Set 183 years before the events of Lord of the Rings1, War of the Rohirrim is narrated by Eowyn of Rohan (Miranda Otto, from the original trilogy), telling the story of her ancestors, Helm Hammerhand (Brian Cox) and his daughter, Héra (Gaia Wise). Héra’s childhood friend Wulf (Luke Pasqualino) comes to ask for her hand in marriage. King Helm balks at this and, in the ensuing fisticuffs, punches Wulf’s father dead. Wulf and his kin declare war on Rohan, forcing Helm and his people to retreat to the fortress that would soon become his namesake, while Héra goes on her own journey to find the courage to stand against Wulf on her own.
Admittedly, it’s a thin premise. The tale itself was already pretty scant, coming from a brief passage in Appendix A of Tolkien’s book, which didn’t even give Helm Hammerhand’s daughter a name. I guess they saw that as an opportunity to sketch around the margins and fill in a few gaps? In that regard, the film works well enough. But coming in at two hours and fourteen minutes, War of the Rohirrim is far too long for the story it’s trying to tell. One also can’t help but notice the similarities to Pixar’s Brave, another animated film of a wild, young redhead who refuses an offer of marriage, the fallout from which threatens to tear their kingdom apart and turn a beloved parent into a bloodthirsty monster. Maybe they realized the similarity and just decided to roll with it. Tolkien predates Pixar by like a hundred years anyway, right? It’s like noticing a new take on Hamlet ripping off The Lion King.
Generally speaking, War of the Rohirrim follows Tolkien’s outline as closely as it could, given the circumstances. There isn’t a whole lot of room for characterization here, as each character fits into a given pattern and sticks as closely to it as possible. Helm is a man of few words, a hulking wall of a man determined to protect his people and family at all costs. Héra is bound by duty but desperate for freedom, as evinced by the handful of scenes where she tries to commune with giant eagles. Wulf is… well, he’s a villain, making the most ruthless and personally destructive choices at every turn, regardless of how it affects his men or his cause. There comes a certain point where you think Wulf has to see that none of this is going to end well for him. Every good villain thinks he’s the hero of his own story, but this guy… This guy just sucks.
There’s very little nuance given to these characters, is what I’m getting at. I wouldn’t call this a stylistic choice, but the characters feel thinly drawn in the manner of a Greek myth. You know their archetypes, how they’ll behave, and what fate has in store for them from the get-go. It’s such a rote, paint-by-numbers approach to storytelling. That’s what makes the running time so egregious. It’s too damn long and there are no surprises whatsoever by the end.
For Tolkien fans, this’ll most definitely scratch that itch. There are dozens of little moments, references to lines spoken elsewhere, all the fan service-y bits we come to expect from stuff like this. Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan (Pippen and Merry, from the original films) make a brief appearance as a pair of orcs hunting for rings, and the last scene heavily tees up a character’s journey to the Shire, because fans need to be reminded of that thing that they like at all times. In between, this really just feels like a retelling of all the Rohan parts of The Two Towers.
But as much as I’m willing to nitpick the storytelling or the occasionally janky animation, I also find myself really wanting to give War of the Rohirrim a pass. The characters are tragically flat, this is true, which leaves a lot to be desired from the storytelling. On the other hand, I realized that I just plain enjoy spending time on Peter Jackson’s version of Tolkien’s universe, no matter how it’s presented. I would gladly watch another story told in this style, or hell, even an entire anthology series of Middle Earth short stories. There ought to be a Star Wars Visions-style anthology of different Middle Earth stories told by a variety of different artists. Make that happen, Warner Bros. Open up the legendarium sandbox and let everyone play around in it.
- As the narration states, “two hundred years before Bilbo Baggins found the One Ring.” The turbo-nerd in me immediately went home to fact check this only to discover that they were, indeed, right on the money. Touché. ↩︎
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