My Review of "Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim"

Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, is a side story of the Lord of the Rings franchise. It doesn't do anything that affects the overall story but builds on a small existing lore within the vast universe of the franchise. It's told in a Japanese anime style of movie telling and for some this is not their cup of tea. That's understandable. I was able to watch through this and I actually had a good time.

The movie starts out with the introduction of our lead character Héra. She's the daughter of the king of Rohan named Helm Hammerhand. This king is legendary because of his fighting ability and commanding presence. He stands head over everyone in the room at all times. She has two brothers and a cousin. They're all very close.

One day there's discussion of who Héra is going to marry to keep the line royal line going. Héra doesn't want to marry at all. She idolizes a tribe of women that once defended Rohan called the Shield Maidens. They're this group of women that defended Rohan after all of the men had died in battle. There's only one of them still around to talk about them but they're all but extinct. Still she trains like them and wants to have adventures like them.

In peaceful times, there's no need for such warriors but everything goes awry when Freca comes to meet with Helm. He means to offer his son Wulf to marry Héra. Helm is a very proud man and he believes Héra deserves to be with someone with a higher nobility. Insulted, Freca takes this outside with Helm. Again, Helm is a beast of a man. He basically punches Freca and Freca dies.

Wulf is devastated. Héra rejects him straight up when he asks her and now his father is dead. He goes full on incel on them and declares that he will kill Helm. Helm feels bad for killing Freca and says that what he'll do is banish Wulf. Of course the scheming is going to come and he's going to come back.

The movie is a coming of age story for Héra who is an observer of how Helm basically loses almost everything because of his arrogance and naivety. She has to rise above everything to overcome some pretty crazy circumstances. They do this in some pretty clever circumstances but very attuned to how an anime would play out.

Animation-wise, this movie is kind of all over the place. Though the artistic design of everything is absolutely beautiful, there is some jerky spots with the flow of the animation. It's as if they were missing some animation frames and in some spots it looks like the characters are floating weird when they should be walking. I think this kind of takes people away from this movie. This is especially weird because the movie isn't all action. There are a lot of still scenes and you'd think that this wouldn't be an issue.

The soundstage is another story. If you watch this movie with a good movie theatre sound setup, this movie will blow you away. I felt really immersed into the movie because of the amazing music and sound effects. I could hear the soldiers and villagers coming from all of the speakers and it was great fun. This more than made up for some of the crappy animation.

Voice acting was really well done and they did a great job in making me feel the emotions of the characters. Too bad the animation was so jittery. It was the only thing that really held this movie back from me enjoying it even more.

Overall, it's a Lord of the Rings movie so it isn't all action. Add to the fact that anime movies aren't all action as well means that there's a slow burn to this movie. That's not for everyone. I was able to enjoy everything about this movie except for the jittery animation. I'm really surprised this passed through quality control. I would have to give this movie a 7 out of 10. The animation really pulls it down.