‘Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim’ Review: Side Quest

There’s something so tantalizing about discovering the story within a story — the old tale, the side quest or the bit of lore that is relegated to a brief mention or note. Or, possibly, to a reference in the appendix. That’s the case in “The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim,” a hot-and-cold anime adaptation of a tale mentioned in the appendices of “The Lord of the Rings.”

Taking place pre-Peter Jackson trilogy and post-Amazon series, and directed by Kenji Kamiyama (“Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex”), the movie is based on a story from the history of Rohan, a kingdom of men known to be great horse-tamers and riders. Almost 200 years before the War of the Ring, Rohan is facing a mighty rift within its own boundaries, as a Dunlending lord named Wulf seeks a bloody path to the throne held by Helm Hammerhand, voiced by Brian Cox (and, yes, Helm as in Helm’s Deep, the battle site in “The Two Towers,” the second Jackson film). As fighting breaks out, putting both the Helm house and the people of Rohan at risk, Helm’s only daughter, a wild and untamed princess fated for little more than an advantageous marriage, becomes the warrior who defines the battle’s conclusion.

Helm’s daughter is unnamed in the appendices, but here she gets both a name — Héra — and a central role in the story, as the eyes through which we see the action unfold. Héra (voiced by Gaia Wise), her family’s fastest equestrian, descends from a tradition of Rohan shield maidens, as does her casually badass lady in waiting, Olwyn. The narrator is Éowyn (voiced by Miranda Otto, who played the character in Jackson’s trilogy), another shield maiden who tells the story 200 years after the film’s events. So while “War of the Rohirrim” feels like a noble attempt to expand the number of valiant women characters in J.R.R. Tolkien’s canon, Héra doesn’t feel fully realized. Though she’s independent and bonded to nature, the character lacks personality and feels ancillary to the story. Even the film’s bid to add dimension, by, say, including a flashback of Héra’s childhood friendship with Wulf, plays as a forced attempt to weave this character into the larger drama of the movie.

Part of the issue here is the built-in constraints to the narrative: The War of the Rohirrim takes up less than three pages in the appendices to Tolkien’s already meticulously detailed and beloved “Lord of the Rings,” so there is, understandably, a bit of reticence to the storytelling in the film. “The War of the Rohirrim” tries to strike the proper balance between remaining loyal to the Middle-earth created by Tolkien and imagined by Jackson while also introducing novel ideas to an adaptation of a lesser-known part of that universe.

So although parts of the story feel predictable or familiar — particularly character tropes like the stubborn ruler, the loyal knight exiled from the kingdom and the one-dimensional villain hellbent on revenge — the film does succeed at recreating the fantasy world we know and love, just in a new anime format. It helps that this film shares much of the same creative team that worked on the Jackson films, and the unforgettable music, by Stephen Gallagher (music editor of the “Hobbit” trilogy), immediately sets this world within Jackson’s universe.