By Nermeen Nabil Khear 
It’s been 21 years since The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King graced theaters to put an epic final note on Peter Jackson’s trilogy of The Lord of the Rings movies. And, incredibly, already 10 years since the final movie in The Hobbit trilogy arrived on the big screen. For a decade, our Decembers have been incredibly lonely without holiday-time releases of a sweeping Tolkien tale. And so, when it was announced that we would be returning to the world of The Lord of the Rings, as envisioned by Peter Jackson, in the hands of his great collaborator Philippa Boyens, and imagined into a new genre by visionary director Kenji Kamiyama, there was a great excitement in the air. But also, a breath held. With such an immense saddle to step into, would The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim match the nuanced story, the resonating emotion, and the glorious beauty of its predecessors and ride to glory? Happily, the answer to that is unequivocally yes. But not only is The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim an incredible The Lord of the Rings movie, it is also an incredible movie, full stop.
There’s always a danger when reawakening a nostalgia dragon that the magic of the world and its story will be worn too thin. Some retreads have tried but failed to fully recapture former glory—falling short of original, beloved incarnations and appearing as thin, reanimated wraiths. But, in a stroke of great genius, The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim does not wish to be a simple backdrop to a rolling set of cameos and Easter eggs. Instead, it purposefully moves away from referencing or including beloved icons of previous tales, from catering to an audience that does not yet belong to it. Instead, The War of the Rohirrim chooses to steadfastly focus on the story it is telling in order to earn with intent the love of its viewers and not simply command them with magic tricks.
And yet, the story unequivocally lives in Peter Jackson’s version of Tolkien’s world, giving long-time fans the kind of beautiful catharsis that comes from returning to a beloved place. The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim offers cleverly familiar cues to its audience, drawing on designs from the original movies for everything from buildings to creatures to costumes, and it brings back the same brilliant minds to ensure the film feels like a predecessor to the Middle-earth we’ll see in The Lord of the Rings movies, without sacrificing its own depth and originality. Additionally, the writing is dense, in the best way, literary and poetic, Tolkien-esque to its core, with some of Tolkien’s own words weaving in and out of the work that comes from brilliant writers Phoebe Gittins and Arty Papageorgiou.
Of course, the stirring musical notes of Rohan’s theme that sound in The War of the Rohirrim will immediately well tears in the eyes of any decades-long fan, unleashing a wave of emotion. But that’s how it should be. The movie is a part of a legacy. And it gives fans all the beauty of that truth while also building a new substantial story of its own that, one day, The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim’s fans will look back on with deep, nostalgic affection in their hearts. (Yes, there are a couple of major nods to Tolkien fans. How could there not be? There’s just more to the movie than that.)
And what is that story? Why it’s the tale of Hèra, a shieldmaiden of Rohan and a previously nameless daughter that exists at the center of the tale of Helm Hammerhand, a great king of Rohan, in Tolkien’s appendices. In the legend, Helm Hammerhand’s anger (perhaps hubris) over the desire for his daughter’s hand raises a great threat to Rohan, which forces its people to retreat to the Hornburg (or Helm’s Deep as it comes to be known) and fight for their survival. As with many of the short tales that make up Tolkien’s appendices, the story offers a riveting frame but doesn’t go into too much detail on the exact details of the adventure. The War of the Rohirrim sweeps in on this rich-with-promise thread and magnifies into a tale that feels laden with history, worthy of entering into song and lore. That is the exact right place for an adaptation to sit, as it allows the movie to make its own choices while deeply respecting the creator that bore it. (In fact, The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim is bold enough to change the lore slightly, but in tremendously impactful ways that were so right for this story.)
The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim takes a nameless daughter of a king and gives her a name. And that, just in a sentence, explains the power of this movie. Hèra is a tremendous character, a woman who follows in the footsteps of Éowyn in our world, but transforms to become the kind of warrior who will one day influence her descendent to declare, “I am no man” in Tolkien’s. We so rarely see a story like Hèra’s, one of a leader that rises not out of desire for a crown, not even out of aspirations to nobility or good, but simply because someone must.
At its heart, The War of the Rohirrim is a deep love story, but not of a romance between two people, but instead of a romance between a woman and her people, and perhaps, more importantly, a woman and herself. (Another kind of story so rarely told.) Hèra’s journey from a nameless woman at the mercy of the men around her to a fierce leader who is prepared to put themselves on the line to save their people will be deeply felt by any person who has ever felt more in their hearts than what is thought of them and sought to release that out into the world.
But Hèra is not the only meaningful character. The War of the Rohirrim’s entire cast of heroes and villains is immediately enjoyable—including the larger-than-life Helm Hammerhand, Hera’s brothers, the proud Haleth and the sweet Háma, and the oh-so-human villain Wulf, whose heart is complex but whose singular obsession with his own victory overwhelms his soul. Original characters like Olywn, Hèra’s guardian and mentor, with whom Hèra shares a sincere and resonating bond of kinship and sisterhood, and Old Pennicruik, a hilarious witch-like character, who also joins the beautiful collection of women depicted in the tale, enhance the tapestry woven from lore-based characters in just the right ways. We offer full kudos to The War of the Rohirrim‘s voice actors, including Brian Cox, Gaia Wise, Miranda Otto, and Luke Pasqualino, who deliver moving and nuanced performances.
Beyond this, the movie has everything you might want from an epic fantasy tale, especially a Tolkienian one. We get to witness a rich array of all that Middle-earth has to offer, including some of its best creatures, including giant eagles, mumakil, snow trolls, and even one tentacley surprise. There are orcs (looking for something shiny) that make an appearance and offer a resolution to a long-held canon mystery. And horses, so many horses. (It’s a horse-girl movie, after all.)
The War of the Rohirrim also brings the viewer a hallmark they’ve come to expect from The Lord of the Rings movies: battles on the most epic level. The clashes in The War of the Rohirrim come in all shapes and sizes, from intimate to massive. They are bloody, riveting, and emotional. They’ll have the audience at the edge of their seats wondering what will happen and who will survive. (There’s also a creature face-off that is INCREDIBLE, right up there with any other claw-to-tooth battle that’s ever gone down.)
Of course, we would be remiss not to mention that this movie is an anime movie just as much as a The Lord of the Rings movie. The visuals and artwork, firstly, are absolutely gorgeous. So much of an animated movie lives and dies by how pleasing it is to look at. And The War of the Rohirrim is one of the most beautifully animated movies to have crossed a screen to date. There are so many details in the foreground and the background for viewers to pick up on (with new facets surely appearing on first, second, and third viewings), the characters are full of glinting emotion, and the snow and ice—well, they really make you shiver. The art heightens the story, and the story heightens the art. Beyond that, Kamiyama clearly took care to ensure that the telling of the story presents in a very anime way. There are moments where eyes bulge, hair flies, nature shines, and monsters transform, which you just know have come from someone deeply entrenched in the anime tradition.
Ultimately, The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim is a sprawling epic but also well-encapsulated tale. It devotes itself to telling the one story it selected as its focus and delivers it in a grand fashion. Simultaneously, it opens the door to more stories and to new perspectives on stories already known. As it confidently tells its Tolkien tale, it neither requires a deep knowledge of the lore (though in and of itself offers one) nor allows nostalgia to do the heavy lifting. And so, it appeals itself both to long-time fans of the franchise and to those for whom this might be the very first encounter with Middle-earth. In the end, it invites every fan to further explore the world of The Lord of the Rings.
The War of the Rohirrim begins with Éowyn telling the story of Hèra as though she is sitting by the fireplace, recounting a tale entrenched in true history and culture. And that is exactly what it feels like to watch The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, like an invitation to sit by a great hearth in Middle-earth and help carry on the story of the shieldmaidens of Rohan in our hearts.
The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim ⭐ (5 of 5)
The post THE WAR OF THE ROHIRRIM Gallops to Greatness, Delivers Spectacular THE LORD OF THE RINGS Anime Movie (Review) appeared first on Nerdist.
This articles is written by : Nermeen Nabil Khear Abdelmalak
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