The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim review – "An uninspired expansion of the most iconic screen take on Tolkien"

From The Animatrix to powerhouse Japanese studio Science Saru bringing us Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, the tackling of Western intellectual properties by the anime industry has proved fruitful over the last few decades – just look at how some of the most exciting Star Wars material of late has come from Star Wars: Visions. With The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, this merging of East and West talent and ideas gets its biggest platform to date.

It's a two-hour-plus feature given a wide theatrical release across the globe, conceived to fit within the continuity of Peter Jackson's live-action Lord of the Rings and Hobbit films (he's an executive producer on this), and directed by the prolific anime veteran Kenji Kamiyama (Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex), with various major Japanese animation houses credited as contributors to the project. But despite all its impressive credentials, this hopeful blockbuster sadly proves to be one of the more uninspired examples of an English-language property being given an anime makeover.

Although The War of the Rohirrim contains a new musical score from Stephen Gallagher, the familiar notes of Howard Shore's piece 'One Ring to Rule Them All' are among the first things we hear in the opening stage-setting of this new film, as the same title card font used for Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy returns to firmly place this movie in that specific universe – if you're more keen on The Rings of Power series, you may still find things to enjoy in this very different prequel to J. R. R. Tolkien's mainline novels. Also returning from the Jacksonverse is Mirando Otto as Éowyn, narrating proceedings as though the film's story is something she's telling to her children.

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Back in time

Set nearly 200 years before the events of Jackson's first Middle-earth trilogy, The War of the Rohirrim presents us with Helm Hammerhand (voiced by Brian Cox), a king of Rohan whose name became legend. But the first person we're introduced to is Héra (Gaia Wise), the adult daughter of Helm, whose name, Éowyn tells us, was not passed down in historical records in the same way. A free spirit often found wandering the wilderness, Héra is close with Olwyn (Lorraine Ashbourne), one of the last of the shieldmaidens of lore, and has no interest in plans for marriage that are not born out of love. If you have thought of Princess Merida from Pixar's Brave while reading this, Héra is very much in that character template, and possibly not coincidentally also host to long red hair.

A suitor for Héra is what sparks the film's main conflict, as Dunlending lord Freca (Shaun Dooley) attempts a political maneuver with Helm by proposing that Héra marry his son, Wulf (Luca Pasqualino), a former childhood friend of Héra with whom she would secretly train in sword fighting as a young girl. Things go awry during the tense meeting between the fathers, and following a tragic misjudgement, Wulf has vengeance and the seizing of power set firmly in his sights.

As the ruthless young lord gains dangerous allies and sets up base at Isengard, Helm, his sons Hama (Yazdan Qafouri) and Haleth (Benjamin Wainwright), and his nephew Fréaláf (Laurence Ubong Williams) face additional challenges within their inner circle. Héra, meanwhile, must summon the will to lead as a shieldmaiden, as their deadly enemy forces the people of Rohan to take shelter in the stronghold of the Hornburg, a mighty fortress destined to be renamed and revisited for another siege in The Two Towers.

Fantasy lite

The War of the Rohirrim is an interesting case where a film's potential strengths directly feed into its failings. On the one hand, it's refreshing to get an ostensibly smaller-scale tale set in this universe, where the main antagonist is just a human rather than a magic-user or mythical creature. On the other hand, that this entry in a fantasy series is relatively light on fantastical elements – bar a few single-scene appearances of orcs and monsters, and one plot thread with a wraith – doesn't help to disguise the lack of flavor to this lethargically-paced story. The assembled voice cast gives it their all, but none of these characters pop in a memorable way like even some of the supporting Rohirrim players from Jackson's films – shout out to Gamling in The Two Towers and The Return of the King.

When it comes to the animation itself, there's a sense that design restrictions have been enforced, based on this film serving as a prequel to a set of hugely popular, undeniably iconic blockbusters. There is a recognizable anime flourish in the faces (though not too extreme), but perhaps so as not to alienate fans of Jackson's live-action films who aren't well-versed in anime, character models are otherwise designed to be as boilerplate as possible, with the humans often moving with a distractingly mechanical stiffness.

The few creatures on display fare a little better, with one memorable set piece involving an elephant-like mûmak in the woods being a rare moment where the film comes alive. But the spectacle potential for Tolkien filtered through an anime lens feels wasted, especially when compared to how wild and inventive the contributors to Star Wars: Visions get to make things.

Elsewhere, empty nods to later events – including Mordor orcs looking for rings – grate, while the dramatic way that the title 'Helm's Deep' is delivered hammers that this tale really is little more than an origin story for the name of a location in a much better movie. And one particular voice cameo from a deceased actor jars. Thankfully, their limited dialogue was reportedly pulled from archival material rather than digital resurrection through the dark magic of generative AI (if you don't mind spoilers, you can learn more here). But going to that well for ultimately superfluous ends only adds to this film's imbalance between honoring the past and forging a distinctive identity of its own.

The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim is out in UK cinemas and US theaters on December 13.

For more, check out our guide to how to watch the Lord of the Rings movies in order.