{"id":10383,"date":"2024-12-15T18:34:32","date_gmt":"2024-12-15T23:34:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=10383"},"modified":"2024-12-21T08:58:18","modified_gmt":"2024-12-21T13:58:18","slug":"the-lord-of-the-rings-the-war-of-the-rohirrim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/12\/15\/the-lord-of-the-rings-the-war-of-the-rohirrim\/","title":{"rendered":"The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim <\/strong>(2024)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Warner Bros.-New Line\/Fantasy-Action-Adventure\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 134 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (strong violence)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Kenji Kamiyama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Jeffrey Addiss, Will Matthews, Phoebe Gittins and Arty Papageorgiou\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Peter Gallagher\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: December 13, 2024 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Brian Cox, Gaia Wise, Luke Pasqualino, Miranda Otto, Lorraine Ashbourne, Yazdan Qafouri, Benjamin Wainwright, Laurence Ubong Williams, Shaun Dooley, Michael Wildman, Jude Akuwudike, Bilal Hasna, Janine Duvitski.<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ** \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0I couldn\u2019t help but notice something missing from The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim<\/strong>, a prequel to the original Lord of the Rings trilogy. I didn\u2019t feel the same love that I felt in Peter Jackson\u2019s adaptations of J.R.R. Tolkien\u2019s novels. The New Zealand filmmaker clearly loves the source material; it shows in every gorgeous frame of the three films. I don\u2019t see it here. That can be explained by New Line\u2019s main reason for making the movie. It was a business decision. The studio fast-tracked it in order to retain the rights to the franchise before they revert back to the late author\u2019s estate. It\u2019s a pretty good movie, but it has a noticeably rushed feel to it.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Set 183 years before the events of LOTR, The War of the Rohirrim<\/strong> centers on Hera (Wise, A Walk in the Woods), the wild and wayward daughter of Helm Hammerhand (Cox, Manhunter), king of Rohan. Strong-willed and independent, this is one girl who won\u2019t be told what to do. One day, Lord Freca (Dooley, Saltburn) shows up and tries to convince Helm to marry off his only daughter to his son Wulf (Pasqualino, The Musketeers). Although childhood friends, Hera turns down Wulf\u2019s proposal which offends Freca to the point of hand-to-hand combat with the king. Helm defeats and kills his opponent with a single blow. An angry Wulf swears revenge and rides off to parts unknown.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Several years later, a new threat against Rohan rears its ugly head. It\u2019s Wulf, of course. He\u2019s back to make good on his promise of revenge. Now the High Lord of the Dunlending tribe, he leads an attack on Rohan. Helm and his army try to fight them off, but they can\u2019t. Hera evacuates the city and takes everybody to Hornburg, a stronghold where they remain under siege by Wulf and his men throughout the winter.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Directed by Kenji Kamiyama (Blade Runner: Black Lotus), The War of the Rohirrim <\/strong>definitely isn\u2019t on the same epic scale as Jackson\u2019s films. He did a brilliant job on all three movies. He hit all the right beats, artistic and emotional. I\u2019ll grant that The War of the Rohirrim<\/strong> looks good. The animation, the traditional hand-drawn variety, is well done. It has a nice visual palette. Some of the illustrations are quite beautiful. The problem is it never looks or feels huge. It\u2019s animation, Kenji could have gone big with it, but he doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

\u00a0As for the emotional aspect of The War of the Rohirrim<\/strong>, it simply isn\u2019t there. You would think a story about a heroine who loses several people she loves would have more of an impact. The problem is the writers don\u2019t develop the characters more. They\u2019re as two-dimensional as the animation. It would have been cool to hear more about \u201cThe Shield Maidens\u201d, a tribe of female warriors not given their proper place in Middle Earth history. It would have been neat to see them rise again. It definitely would have given Hera more purpose and complexity.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Despite its shortcomings, I like The War of the Rohirrim<\/strong>. That is to say, I didn\u2019t mind watching it. It\u2019s an entertaining fantasy-adventure with some decent action scenes. I appreciate the reverence it shows for old school animation. In a way, it recalls Ralph Bakshi\u2019s version of The Lord of the Rings from 1978. The voice talents, Cox in particular, do a great job. Wise projects strength and fortitude as the heroine Hera. Pasqualino sounds perfectly despicable as the vengeance-seeking villain. I love the call-backs to the OG films. I won\u2019t elaborate; it\u2019s more fun to be surprised.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Okay, so The War of the Rohirrim<\/strong> didn\u2019t thrill me like I hoped it would. It doesn\u2019t go that extra mile and suffers for it. It really could have been so much more. Instead, it\u2019s good not great. Its biggest problem is that it never really comes to life like it should. The whole thing has a flat feel to it. It has a few slow stretches and more than once, characters talk when they should act. It\u2019s definitely a flawed production, but it\u2019s not unwatchable. It\u2019s the kind of movie you see at a matinee.\"\"<\/p>\n

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The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim (2024)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Warner Bros.-New Line\/Fantasy-Action-Adventure\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 134 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (strong violence)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Kenji Kamiyama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Jeffrey Addiss, Will Matthews, Phoebe Gittins and Arty Papageorgiou\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Peter Gallagher\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: December 13, 2024 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Brian Cox, Gaia Wise, Luke Pasqualino, Miranda Otto, Lorraine Ashbourne, Yazdan […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10399,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-animation","category-sci-fi-fantasy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/The-War-of-the-Rohirrim-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10383"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10383\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10400,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10383\/revisions\/10400"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}