Note: Despite being fully animated, The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim is screening solely in its original English-language version with Czech subtitles in Prague cinemas.
Hundreds of years before the events of Peter Jackson‘s The Lord of the Rings trilogy, the king of men and his courageous daughter must navigate a brutal civil war in The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, opening in Prague from Dec. 4 before hitting cinemas stateside next weekend. Gorgeously hand-crafted under the direction of Kenji Kamiyama (Blade Runner: Black Lotus and Ghost in the Shell SAC_2045) this rich but approachable spectacle breathes new life into a franchise that has seen diminishing returns following Jackson’s The Hobbit trilogy and Amazon’s The Rings of Power series.
Unlike that ambitious but ethereal series, The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim tells a simple, self-contained story that can be appreciated by all viewers. Franchise fans may appreciate some name drops and connections to the earlier movies, like detailing how Helm’s Deep got its name, but even those completely new to J.R.R. Tolkien‘s work will find a lot to like here.
The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim is narrated by Éowyn (Miranda Otto, the lone returning actor from Jackson’s original trilogy save for brief archival use of Christopher Lee‘s Saruman), and tells the story of the titular conflict, which was detailed in an appendix to Tolkien’s work. Set some 200 years before the events of the earlier films in the land of Rohan, the author’s kingdom of men, it benefits by being grounded in a more familiar environment than some of the franchise’s more fantastic worlds, though fantastic creatures have a home here, too.
The storyline is one of Shakespearean tragedy: Héra (Gaia Wise) and Wulf (Luca Pasqualino) were childhood friends, but Héra’s father Helm Hammerhand (Brian Cox, in a commanding vocal performance) is the hot-tempered King of the Rohirrim, Rohan’s noted horse riders, and Wulf’s father Freca (Shaun Dooley) a lord among the Dunlending, a race of Wildmen living on the edge of their kingdom.
When Wulf proposes marriage to Héra, her father is incensed at what he feels is a ploy by Freca to steal his throne, and a bitter exchange of words soon turns physical. With a single enraged blow, Hammerhand lives up to his name and kills Freca in front of his son; Wulf, banished from the kingdom, retreats to Dunland but plots a bloody war fueled by vengeance.
This fast-paced setup to the events of The War of the Rohirrim quickly establishes the basic storyline while we try to play keep up with all the other characters that are introduced: Héra’s loyal guardian Olwyn (Lorraine Ashbourne), her brothers Hama (Yazdan Qafouri) and Haleth (Benjamin Wainwright), their brave cousin Fréaláf (Laurence Ubong Williams), the deceptive Lord Thorne (Jude Akuwudike), and Wulf’s second-in-command General Targg (Michael Wildman).
Each of these characters is barely introduced by the time war breaks out in Rohan, but they each play a significant and satisfying part of this self-contained story rather than being introduced for the sake of satisfying IP requirements. Writers Jeffrey Addiss & Will Matthews (who developed The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance for Netflix) and Phoebe Gittins & Arty Papageorgiou have created something that feels wholly original—Héra is not even identified by name in the original books—but also completely at home in Tolkien’s universe.
But the real star of the show in The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim is its breathtaking visual design and hand-crafted animation. Director Kamiyama combines traditional anime-style 2D characters with a lifelike 3D backdrop to wonderful effect; the interaction between the two styles, in scenes that feature snowfall, fire, or other effects that bring them together, is often astonishing to look at. Rohirrim stands alongside Sony’s Spiderverse films as features that not only target older demographics with a more mature storyline, but also appeal to more artistic visual sensibilities.
The visuals and storyline come together during The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim‘s two big action set pieces, large-scale battles that pit that forces of Rohirrim against the Wildmen and rival Jackson’s original trilogy in their attention to military detail. The first is a thrilling siege of Edoras, and the second a lengthy standoff at Helm’s Deep that takes up most of the running time and explicitly evokes memories of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.
The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim may have been conceived as a way for New Line to maintain big-screen rights to the franchise, but it builds upon the original trilogy in the best way possible, with a satisfying one-off story that captures the spirit of Tolkien’s mythology. Dazzlingly original in both its conception and animated execution, this one is a real treat at the cinema this holiday season.
