‘There are older tales than the War of the Ring,’ narrates Miranda Otto, AKA warrior maiden Éowyn, at the opening of this latest JRR Tolkien adaptation – set 183 years before The Fellowship of the Ring.
This is hardly a newsflash. After three Hobbit films and two seasons of The Rings of Power, older Middle-earth tales are all we’ve had since Peter Jackson’s triumphant trilogy concluded in 2003. Despite using musical cues from Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings, while faithfully replicating its location design and a few cast members, The War of the Rohirrim is very different – in ways that are both immediately apparent, and more gradually revealing.
For the first time since Ralph Bakshi’s 1978 adaptation (unless you count its best-forgotten 1980 small-screen sequel The Return of the King), The War of the Rohirrim is an animated movie take on Tolkien. Under director Kenji Kamiyama (Blade Runner: Black Lotus), it employs the nimble, graphical, big-eyed style of anime, which blends remarkably well with the inherited world-design (Tolkien concept artists and illustrators John Howe and Alan Lee are credited).
The plot is, again, overly dependent on the helpfulness of giant eagles
Much of the story’s success is down to the appeal of its lead character, Hèra (Gaia Wise), who stands out in this series by not being male, and thus is largely the invention of the screenwriters. (‘Do not look for tales of her in the old sagas,’ Éowyn warns us of a character whom Tolkien couldn’t even be bothered to name.) She’s the rebellious, red-haired daughter of the imposing King of Rohan (Brian Cox, back on top scary patriarch form). But this steely, nature-attuned princess – distinctly reminiscent of Hayao Miyazaki’s Nausicaä – must step up and teach all these hairy dudes a thing or two when civil war breaks out with the men of the West March and the Rohirrim are familiarly besieged at the Hornburg stronghold (soon to be Helm’s Deep).
It’s to the movie’s credit that it concentrates on a self-contained, relatively local story, though this focus is weakened by a perceived need for call-backs. So there’s a random encounter with some ring-collecting orcs (Dominic Monaghan and Billy Boyd) and a creepy cameo by Saruman (voiced, from beyond the grave, by Christopher Lee), while the plot, once more, is overly dependent on the helpfulness of giant eagles. Plus, given its iconic setting, The War of the Rohirrim can’t help but echo the final act of The Two Towers.
Even so, for the most part, it’s a welcome return to Peter Jackson’s Middle-earth that feels as nostalgic as it is novel.
In cinemas worldwide Dec 13.