Lord of the Rings: War of the Rohirrim Review: A Middling Prequel

When I think of the new animated movie “The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim,” I think of the words of the legendary public speaker Bilbo Baggins, who probably would have described it like this: “I like half of it half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of it half as well as it deserves.”

Mr. Baggins was a harsh critic, but he knew how to turn a phrase. His famous quote from “The Fellowship of the Ring” cleverly articulates that something isn’t very good while simultaneously allowing that some of it may be okay, and you’re just too annoyed to care. “The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim” is an underwhelming production with hit-and-miss animation (mostly miss) and largely generic performances, and yet it’s not a complete washout.

“The War of the Rohirrim” is the fourth best animated “Lord of the Rings” feature, which sounds pretty good until you remember there are only four of them. Rankin/Bass’s 1977 TV movie “The Hobbit” is still the best version of J.R.R. Tolkien’s original, standalone tale. Ralph Bakshi’s 1978 theatrical release “The Lord of the Rings” is still a bold, ambitious epic that tells only half of the story, but tells parts of it better than Peter Jackson’s trilogy does. The conclusion, again told by Rankin/Bass on TV in 1980, is a stripped down version of “The Return of the King” but it has excellent and odd elements, like a powerhouse theme song with the lyrics “Frodo! Of the nine fingers! And the ring of doom! Why does he have nine fingers?!”

“The War of the Rohirrim” steps outside of Tolkien’s original novels, traveling back to the age of King Helm Hammerhand of Rohan. He’s a hulking monstrosity, voiced with theatrical gusto by Brian Cox, who gives the film’s only memorable performance. Helm’s daughter Héra (Gaia Wise) is “wild” and “headstrong” and has no desire to marry Wulf (Luke Pasqualino), the son of a boisterous nobleman. Wulf’s father won’t take “no” for an answer so a fistfight breaks out and King Helm accidentally kills the poor jerk with a single punch.

Years go by and Wulf suddenly returns, having taken supervillain lessons from Bowser in the intervening years. He abducts Héra and whisks her away to his castle, Isengard, which one day will be an important location in Middle-earth, but it is not this day. Wulf still wants to marry Héra, but he also wants to conquer Helm’s kingdom; two bad tastes that taste bad together.

Héra escapes, a battle commences, but Helm is outmaneuvered. Before long the people of Rohan are trapped inside their fortress stronghold, The Hornburg. (Remember all these locations from the movies? That’s kinda fun, right? Remembering?) From this point on, “The War of the Rohirrim” becomes a protracted siege picture, with Héra rallying her people while Helm recovers from his soul-crushing defeat, with Wulf’s army waiting outside the walls for the people of Rohan to starve to death or surrender.

We’ll get back to the story in a minute but the elephant in the room, in part because there’s an elephant involved (it sneaks up on Héra like a slasher villain — it’s hilarious), is the animation quality. The first shot of “The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim” is of an unconvincing CGI landscape while an eagle with a surprisingly low frame-rate soars in the foreground. It’s not an encouraging opening but at least it minimizes our expectations. Director Kenji Kamiyama (“Star Wars: Visions”) has exciting ideas and tries to compose swirling, impressive shots that push the boundaries of animation, but the film has too many boundaries for that to work. 

There are shots in “The War of the Rohirrim” where horses appear to float against the background instead of existing on the same plane. A few of the CG environments evoke memories of “Mode 7” graphics on a Super Nintendo, which would be charmingly retro if we had a reason to think it was intentional. Kenji Kamiyama seems to be working with fewer resources than many theatrical features, and saves the best material for the film’s key moments, like a climactic duel between the hero and villain. In fits and starts, the film looks good. For long stretches, it doesn’t.

The story works in its broadest strokes but the film is over two hours long, and the details don’t hold up. Practically every character is introduced the same way, when they suddenly interrupt somebody from off-camera, before someone says their name, acting extremely surprised and impressed that a person they know well has somehow entered the room. It doesn’t build intrigue, it just makes everyone seem melodramatic and slightly rude.

The characters are generic, but the main ones get the job done. Héra is a fine hero, completely without flaw but placed in impossible situations, and since the film’s narrator Eowyn (Miranda Otto, returning from the live-action trilogy) says at the beginning that her story has been forgotten, we can at least reasonably wonder if she’s going to survive this war. Wulf is an appreciably crappy bad guy, and I mean that from the bottom of my heart. He’s a real turd, just a sniveling coward of an a-hole, the kind of monster who totally deserves what’s coming to him but probably won’t get it until he’s hurt as many people as he can.

There’s also a hobbit character, Lief (Bilal Hasna), who isn’t literally a hobbit but he’s shorter than everyone else, he’s exceptionally emotionally sensitive, and he speaks with a Shire-like accent for no discernible reason. He has nothing to do except look and sound forlorn, which makes him seem like a walking, talking studio note: “Needs hobbits — or closest equivalent.”

“The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim” also struggles to connect this story to the original trilogy, which it barely needed to do in the first place. It already tells a tale of Rohan with a siege at Helm’s Deep. The filmmakers had the prequelitis box already checked. But we still have shoehorned references to the One Ring, which leads nowhere, and shameless cameos and name drops. The urge to make certain “Rohirrim” absolutely cannot stand on its own only makes sense from a shallow corporate perspective — any other way you look at it, it’s merely annoying.

Still, one has to admit that “The War of the Rohirrim” wears you down after a while. The experience is not unlike watching a community theater production of a Shakespeare tragedy. After you get used to the low production values and wonky performances, you can’t help but get a little swept up in it. By the time the climax rolls around you’re actually invested. Unfortunately, by the time the credits roll, they’ve already lost you again.

“The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim” plays like a straight-to-video rush job that got a little out of hand, and now it has to play to a theatrical crowd that’s unlikely to forgive its many haphazard flaws. It’s hard to get mad at this movie, but it’s oh so easy to be disappointed.

“The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim” opens exclusively in theaters on Dec. 13.