Warner Bros. Discovery has been very vocal about its need to maintain producing an untold variety of tales based mostly on J.R.R. Tolkien’s books in hopes of recreating the monumental success of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings motion pictures. Although it wasn’t a WBD manufacturing, The Rings of Energy proved that Tolkien’s appendices might be normal into riveting explorations of Center-earth’s historical past that really feel like one thing greater than clear money grabs. Sadly, the identical can’t be stated for the brand new animated movie The Lord of the Rings: The Conflict of the Rohirrim.
Primarily based on Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings Appendix A, director Kenji Kamiyama’s (Ghost within the Shell: Stand Alone Advanced, Blood: The Final Vampire) The Conflict of the Rohirrim is an try at making a mountain-sized fantasy epic out of a molehill of footnotes. At occasions, the movie comes near being a wonderful presentation of Center-earth, and you may really feel it making an attempt to deliver one thing of a feminist vitality to the Lord of the Rings canon. However The Conflict of the Rohirrim’s characters are so two-dimensional and its story is so plodding that it’s obscure why the studio thought this specific little bit of lore wanted to be tailored for the massive display screen.
Set about 200 years earlier than the occasions of Jackson’s authentic Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Conflict of the Rohirrim tells the story of how King Helm Hammerhand (Brian Cox) and his daughter, Princess Héra (Gaia Clever), grew to become legends whereas defending the folks of Rohan. Whereas the Rohirrim aren’t any strangers to warfare, peace is what Helm longs for as he settles into his previous age. As is custom, Helm intends for his eldest son Haleth (Benjamin Wainwright) to at some point take his place on the throne. It’s apparent to everybody that Héra is essentially the most brave of the king’s youngsters and the sort of one that might change into an ideal chief. However as an adventure-loving free spirit, Héra would a lot reasonably spend her days out within the wilderness along with her horse as a substitute of being saddled with royal tasks.
All appears nicely as Helm convenes a gathering of Rohan’s nice homes meant to map out a plan for the dominion’s future. However when conniving Dunlending Lord Freca (Shaun Dooley) unexpectedly arrives demanding that Héra be wedded to his son Wulf (Luke Pasqualino), it results in a lethal skirmish that units off a warfare and plunges all of Rohan into chaos.
In The Conflict of the Rohirrim’s give attention to Héra — who isn’t named in Tolkien’s work — and her armed minder Olwyn (Lorraine Ashbourne), you may see co-writers Jeffrey Addiss, Will Matthews, Phoebe Gittins, and Arty Papageorgiou making an attempt to transform particulars from Appendix A right into a extra absolutely fleshed out narrative centering the ladies of Center-earth. That objective looks like a part of the explanation the story is narrated by Rohirrim protect maiden Éowyn (Miranda Otto, reprising the function from live-action Jackson movies). That element reinforces how WBD and New Line Cinema see Conflict of the Rohirrim as an enlargement of their Lord of the Rings canon. However the movie wastes its potential to do something really novel with its central characters and as a substitute makes use of them to inform a story that’s disappointingly rote and predictable. Surprising twists of destiny aren’t precisely the purpose of Lord of The Rings, but it surely’s sort of shocking simply how very like Generic Fantasy™ The Conflict of the Rohirrim feels as its story unfolds.
There may be little nuance to anybody’s characterizations or motivations. Héra’s one other headstrong princess whose gender retains her from being seen as a invaluable warrior, and Wulf reads as so transparently evil that he’s arduous to purchase because the sort of villain able to outmaneuvering his enemies. These weaknesses can be simpler to miss if the film had extra to supply in the best way of thrilling visuals. However even when The Conflict of the Rohirrim is clearly making an attempt to impress you with hovering pictures of Center-earth from Nice Eagles’ views, it by no means feels just like the film is profiting from animation’s means to current fantasy worlds in ways in which aren’t potential with dwell motion.
Typically, The Conflict of the Rohirrim feels excessively dedicated to creating its depiction of Center-earth appear and feel like what we’ve seen in Jackson’s movies. Whereas characters are artfully stylized, the settings they’re shifting by way of are inclined to really feel like uninspired approximations of actuality reasonably than locations crammed with monsters and magic. This turns into particularly obvious throughout motion set items and every time issues are engulfed in flames that appear digitally crafted and animated at a distractingly completely different body charge.
Between The Conflict of the Rohirrim’s multitude of Lord of the Rings musical cues and its smattering of on- and off-screen cameos alluding to future occasions, you get the sense that the studios are banking on followers’ love of the live-action movies to catapult this new function to box-office success. However turning an appendix entry right into a function that places butts in seats requires greater than a little bit of nostalgia, and The Lord of the Rings: The Conflict of the Rohirrim simply doesn’t have what it takes.
The Lord of the Rings: The Conflict of the Rohirrim hits theaters on December thirteenth.
