The New ‘Lord of the Rings’ Film Should Be Banished Back to Middle Earth

It’s not strange that The Lord of the Rings is receiving the animation treatment—after all, J.R.R. Tolkien’s trilogy was initially mainstreamed by Ralph Bakshi’s 1978 film, which established many of the visual designs that now define the material and heavily influenced Peter Jackson’s Oscar-winning trilogy.

Still, there’s something altogether underwhelming about The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, which premieres Dec. 13, the saga’s first big-screen chapter since 2014’s The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies. While it’s directed with flair by Kenji Kamiyama, this anime prequel tells a superfluous story that should have remained in the Tolkien appendices upon which it was based. Only receiving a multiplex release because Warner Bros had to do so in order to maintain the franchise’s theatrical rights, it’s inconsequential and hackneyed to the point of being forgettable.

Almost 200 years before Bilbo Baggins comes into possession of the One Ring, Hèra (Gaia Wise) rides through the countryside as a narrator (Éowyn, voiced by Miranda Otto, who played her in the movies) describes her as “wild” and “headstrong.” She’s also loyal to her father, Rohan’s King Helm Hammerhand (Brian Cox), whose name is as brawny as his physique. Regardless of her courage and excellent riding skills, Hèra is not fit for battle—those duties are left to her brothers.

Even so, she finds herself at the center of a conflict thanks to the appearance of Freca (Shaun Dooley), a burly lord who wants her to marry his son Wulf (Luke Pasqualino), with whom she grew up, besting him in swordplay that left him with a conspicuous scar over his eye. Helm, however, recognizes that Freca really covets his crown and rejects this offer, and when their conversation gets heated, they literally take things outside to duke it out.

With a single punch, Helm kills Freca, thereby making Wulf—whom he banishes—a lifelong enemy. A short time later, Hèra and her cousin Fréaláf (Laurence Ubong Williams) encounter a diseased, rampaging mammoth-like beast that provides The War of the Rohirrim with a Princess Mononoke-esque action sequence marked by creative choreography and fleet, swift movement.

Kamiyama doesn’t skimp on the outsized spectacle whenever possible, although even in this adrenalized opening showstopper, the film’s look is too familiar and humdrum to legitimately excite. In the aftermath of Hèra’s triumph, she’s kidnapped by Wulf, who’s now in control of some hill-people tribe (known as Dunlendings) and intends to slay Helm and his sons and seize the Rohan throne with Hèra by his side. She’s obviously not cool with this, and thanks to the assistance of her shieldmaiden comrade Olwyn (Lorrain Ashbourne), she escapes.

Helm is furious at Wulf’s insolence, and when Fréaláf suggests that they retreat lest they be overrun by the villain’s enormous army, he banishes Fréaláf and prepares for war. The ensuing clash is of an elaborate, furious, bloody sort, with director Kamiyama making sure to include a few fleeting sights of arrows piercing necks and heads, and hands being chopped off by swords, to satiate the film’s intended teen demographic. Nonetheless, for all its sound and fury, The War of the Rohirrim feels small, in large part because its narrative follows a routine track and boasts little meaningful connection to Tolkien’s most famous tales.

Fans will quickly deduce that, given Helm’s name, it’s merely a matter of time before the proceedings shift to Helm’s Deep, site of the titanic battle depicted in The Two Towers, and that expectation is dutifully met by the midway point.

There, Hèra tends to a grievously injured Helm and tries to figure out a way to defend her people from Wulf, who’s mad with vengeful rage and hungers for the absolute destruction of his adversaries. Much middling drama ensues, highlighted by brief instances of dynamic combat, as when Hèra stumbles upon a trio of orcs who are in the snowy mountains collecting rings, and is saved from death by her dad, who’s now been magically resurrected as an unstoppable wraith. In that fight, as in a late closing shot during Helm’s subsequent standoff against Wulf’s minions, Kamiyama compensates for his adventure’s dullness with some aesthetic panache.

The War of the Rohirrim boasts four credited screenwriters: Jeffrey Addiss, Will Matthews, Phoebe Gittins, and Arty Papageorgiou, working from a story conceived by Addiss, Matthews, and original franchise scribe Philippa Boyens. Yet none of them, nor executive producers Jackson and Fran Walsh, devise a reason to care about this franchise footnote, whose characters are stock types and whose disagreements and quarrels are equally formulaic.

Holed up inside Helm’s Deep, Hèra hears about the ghosts that stalk the halls and struggles to face a calamity for which she feels unprepared, but it’s all just filler before the inevitable, lavish showdown between her and Wulf, the latter of whom slowly grows so obsessed with exacting revenge that even his General Targ (Michael Wildman) begins to think he’s lost it. When that skirmish finally arrives, it’s staged with requisite bombast and brutality, if little novelty or surprise that might keep one’s attention.

Visualizing The Lord of the Rings fantasy with anime style proves less awkward as the film goes on, and Stephen Gallagher’s score (embellished by Howard Shore’s original movie themes) goes some way toward creating a sense of sweeping grandeur. No amount of polish, however, can alter the impression that The War of the Rohirrim is slight and unnecessary, its minor strengths—including solid vocal performances from Cox, Wise, and Pasqualino—incapable of justifying its existence.

In its final moments, the film strives to connect itself to Tolkien’s primary plot, and those efforts mostly come across as clunky attempts to contextualize this affair as an important puzzle piece, rather than a throwaway bit of IP extension—lowlighted by the employment of previously unused Christopher Lee line recordings for an epilogue cameo by the evil wizard Saruman.

The War of the Rohirrim closes by setting up the possibility of future Hèra-centric outings, complete with a tease about the heroine’s partnership with a beloved Tolkien icon. Considering the lackluster nature of this return to Middle Earth, that mainly seems like wishful thinking.