The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim (2024)

PG-13 for some fairly brutal murder parts.  When Helm Hammerhand (with a name like that!) can kill people with single punches, you know that the violence is going to be more than the norm.  Honestly, the only thing that really justifies the PG-13 rating is the violence.  Lord of the Rings tends to get a bit more violent than most more family-friendly action films.  But the rest of it is tame...

DIRECTOR: Kenji Kamiyama

I think I'm starting to bite off more than I can chew, especially when it comes to Lent.  Here's some of the things in my daily To-Do List:  Exercise for one hour.  Read 50 pages of a novel (if the novel is over 400 pages, read 100 pages).  Write an essay over any movie I see.  Make sure your work is done before having fun.  Clean.  Cook dinner.  Edit two chapters of the novel I'm writing.  Do you know what I have to add to that list during Lent?  Read 50 pages of Don Quixote, on top of the other 50 pages.  Don Quixote is a slow read, guys.  I don't know how I'm staying upright.  So when I seem burnt out on some of these blogs, just understand that I'm being overtaxed.  I need to purge something soon.  

Rights issues are silly.  It's weird that we've all become low key experts on how the MCU works in terms of rights issues.  We know that there's Marvel and then there's the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  But it's also bizarre that we're aware that some movies exist simply so a studio doesn't lose the rights to a franchise.  New Line Cinema, in an attempt to hold onto The Lord of the Rings, fast tracked this movie into production just to hold onto a property.  That's never my favorite phrase when I hear a movie is coming out.  I want people to put their hearts and souls into a project.  I don't want to know that something is out there just so a studio can stay happy.  I hate studios.  They seem to be the worst.  

I will admit that, for a streamlined movie that's there just to be spiteful, The War of the Rohirrim isn't terrible.  That's not a glowing review because it shouldn't be a glowing review.  War of the Rohirrim most glowing review is that it is functional as a movie.  And I have to give points to the writers for doing most of the heavy lifting on this movie.  While the story of Helm Hammerhand is not quintessential to the Lord of the Rings mythos, it is mildly entertaining at best.  Henson and I were joking about the movie, saying that War of the Rohirrim might be one of those origin stories that no one was really asking for.  When Eowyn declares herself to be a shield maiden of Rohan, we all kind of get what that means.  The term "Shield Maiden" seems to do a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of making things make sense.   I didn't really need to find out about Hera, the last of the shield maidens.  That's fun and all.  But in terms of important storytelling, not so much?

This movie is really a film for the die hards, who probably don't really appreciate the movie for the quality of the presentation.  I tend to be more die hard about everything, even though I don't consider myself to really be a Lord of the Rings nerd.  I've read the novels.  I've watched the movies.  But do you know what I haven't read?  The appendices nor stuff like The Simarillion.  I like the story of The Lord of the Rings.  It's part of our cultural literacy at this point in time.  You kind of need to get into these stories to hold a conversation nowadays.   But even I don't think that this would appeal to the die hards simply because the movie looks ugly.  Now, if I read this out loud to the creators of this film, I wouldn't want them to become defensive.  10% of me thinks that this movie is ugly because of a general skepticism towards anime. I know.  It's unfair and probably not the best when it comes to trying to sell the notion that anime is a medium, not a genre. 

But 90% of me thinks that this movie is ugly because it is rushed.  As shameless as this is of me, part of what makes Lord of the Rings such a big deal in cinema is the majesty and grandeur of it all.  While I love the story and the characters, the cinematic Lord of the Rings sits on the shoulders of Peter Jackson, coupled with WETA workshop and the cinematography of the film.  Just looking at that movie, you think that it looks pretty.  This is not a joke nor is it an exaggeration.  I've often fantasized what the afterlife might be like and wondered if I could sit down with J.R.R. Tolkien and showed him the Lord of the Rings films.  Tolkien was always a skeptic about making his books into movies because the language of cinema could never meet the reaches of his imagination.  But I always thought that Peter Jackson might have hit that mark.

The War of the Rohirrim doesn't do that.  Honestly, the movie looks cheap.  There has been animation that has knocked my socks off and this is not it.  Now, I tried finding ways to explain away my frustrations with how the movie looks.  I mean, action and war scenes tend not to look like live action.  When watching Peter Jackson's movies, the spectacle of these action sequences is partly awe inspiring because we see actors doing things that are seemingly impossible in live action.  The War of the Rohirrim tries duplicating some of that cinematography and choreography that the live action counterparts did.  But all of it fell flat. 

But then I thought of Into the Spider-Verse.  My goodness, those movies sold animated fight choreography.  If anything, it shows that animation can do things that live action simply can't do.  But it needs to be filmed in a dynamic way that takes advantage of the format rather than simply film things in the most basic way possible.  The climax of the movie is a fight between Hera and Wulf.  There's a moment that is meant to be inspiring where Hera leaps over Wulf vertically.  Not only did it not match the epic intention that it was aiming for; the scene was straight up goofy looking.  I know.  This makes me feel like I'm complaining that "the lightsaber sequences aren't cool enough."   I'm more in the camp that, if you can't do it well, don't do it at all.  While Jackson did impressive things with action and choreography, just tell a simple story well.  There's a simple story in here.  But you sell the movie with the name The War of the Rohirrim, I suppose there is some desperation to earn that name.

Now, I did say that the movie wasn't a complete wash.  I probably enjoyed it more than most.  The actual story of Hera and Helm Hammerhand had oddly more legs than I was ready for.  I'll be honest.  It was only on the most recent viewing of The Two Towers that I grew to appreciate Rohan.  I always thought that the Rohan story was a bit of a distraction from the main story.  Now, I kind of dig Rohan.  If you go into the whole mythology of Rohan, there's a story to be told here.  Again, I had incredibly low expectations based on the trailer.  But if you know me at all, you also know that I tend to like way too much stuff.  

Hera is a compelling lead character.  She has this depth that I wasn't prepared for.  The weakest part of her, however, is her sharing screentime with Helm Hammerhand.  As a guy who hasn't read the appendices, I have a feeling that the original story that Tolkien wrote was about Hammerhand.  But I like the idea that Hera has a history with the antagonist.  Sure, Wulf comes across a lot like Kylo Ren.  Like, a lot.  Wulf is a guy who seems a bit more whiny than he should be for a guy who wields so much evil power.  From moment one, Helm Hammerhand kills his dad.  But his dad is the only one who is pushing for the fight between himself and Hammerhand.  When Hammerhand kills him in one punch, it's sad.  But is it "Destroy all of Rohan" sad?  He was a guy who picked a fight with a guy named "Hammerhand."  Yeah, Wulf might be underdeveloped, but Hera makes up for that in the course of the movie. 

But there are a ton of questions that I still didn't understand by the end.  The "Wraith of Hammerhand"?  What was up with that?  In my head, I left with the Occam's Razor answer saying that Helm Hammerhand just got better and started punching people to death.  It doesn't really explain how he did that.  Also, why didn't Helm Hammerhand, instead of freezing to death outside the gate, just burn down the siege tower.  No one could kill him.  Why not do some good?  I don't understand these things.

The takeaway that I'm offering is the most obvious read of this movie.  It's  a wildly imperfect addition to the Lord of the Rings canon because it was rushed into production.  If you go in with a good attitude, there's something to watch.  But to really enjoy it, you have to forgive a lot.