The Lord Of The Rings: The War Of The Rohirrim Film Review

When people think of the Peter Jackson Lord Of The Rings films they usually just think of the original trilogy with one or two people maybe also thinking about The Hobbit trilogy. However there is one film that none of them think about or even talk about due to the fact that it is a very little known entry and it's that very film that i'm going to be talking to you all today and so then join me as I review the film that is the first anime Lord Of The Rings film with the film in question being called simply just "The Lord Of The Rings: The War Of The Rohirrim " enjoy.

The plot of this film is two hundred years before the events of both The Lord Of The Rings and The Hobbit Hera the kings daughter has to lead her people to safety when war breaks out and threatens to destroy everything that she holds dear. Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual plot that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual plot that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty not that bad. With the best word to describe this films plot being average as that's exactly what it is it's an average plot and while that might be fine for other films and would have been fine for this film however tho it's attached to The Lord Of The Rings franchise and therefor the standard of it's plot is alot more higher as we are talking about a story that was originally written by one of the greatest English writers in J. R. R. Tolkien and yet this films plot not only doesn't live up to the high standard set by Tolkien himself but also the previous live action films as this film is telling a whole new story. Something which is something that could be seen as being both a good and bad thing as it does give us a chance to explore other stories in this world but at the same time given how poorly done this average story is it makes it impossible for us to get behind anything that happens in the film as the films plot isn't that strong in the first place with this not really being helped by the fact that they feel the need to hammer home the point that is a prequel rather then just telling a genuinely great story in this great and well thought out world with the plot of this film not really being really rather entertaining and not is it really rather rather engaging either in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.

Starring in this film is Gaia Wise as Héra , Luke Pasqualino as Wulf and Laurence Ubong Williams as Fréaláf Hildeson. Also starring in this film is Brian Cox as Helm Hammerhand , Lorraine Ashbourne as Olwyn , Yazdan Qafouri as Hama , Benjamin Wainwright as Haleth , Shaun Dooley as Freca , Michael Wildman as General Targg , Jude Akuwudike as Lord Thorne , Bilal Hasna as Lief ,  Janine Duvitski as Old Pennicruik , Sir Christopher Lee as Saruman , Billy Boyd as Shank , Dominic Monaghan as Wrot and Miranda Otto as Éowyn.

Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty not that bad. With the actors that you expect a good performance from giving us the kind of performance that you'd expect them to give which is something that does give us some good acting however it also makes the acting in this film feel predictable as we know right away what kind of performance that alot of these more established actors are going to give and therefor it's all that surprising when they give us the exact performance that we expect from me. Where the films acting quality does some what take a nose dive is with it's new actors as alot of them just feel miscast at best and unsure of what kind of performance to give this film whereas with the more established actors they know what kind of performance to give and give us exactly that. With the best actor in this whole entire film being the really underused Miranda Otto as Éowyn as not only is she technically the only actor from the original trilogy to reprise her role as for obvious reason they only use archive audio for Sir Christopher Lee but she once again does nail this character down perfectly and even tho she really only appears at both the start an end of the film she easily out shines alot of the films other actors. With the acting that's in this very film not really being helped by the fact that this films script is just so bad as it gives none of this films absolutely nothing to work with interms of what it is that thee actual characters personalities are even meant to be in the first place which is something that really does hurt the overall quality of the acting that's in this very film.

Doing the animation for this film is the legends and the greats that are currently over at Sola Entertainment. Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty really good. The animation in this film is one of the very few highlights of the film due to the fact that we do get to see alot of detail in the films establishing shots like for example when we first see the Hornberg we see all of the detail in quarry surrounding it with it being that fine detail that does make this world feel more lived in and real. While the films characters do for the most part have the typical anime look to them there are a few instances like for example with Saruman where you can tell that the makers of this film did try to make the characters look like they did in the original films instead of giving them a design that makes it clear that there an anime with the films overall character designs looking really good as even tho alot of the new characters don't look like that they fit in this world as they look like that they came straight out of an anime for this film they do look really good with there not really being a bad character design in the whole film. The film does do a slightly bad job of blending in 2D hand drawn animation with 3D CGI animation as there are times where you can tell that the background is CGI when that is something that could have done in 2D but in saying this tho the elephants in this film whilst they might not have been done in 3D do look really good with the film giving the characters these really nice looking movements that do help the action in the film really come alive.

Whilst this film does feature the return of Éowyn she's the films off screen narrator with it being her that's telling us this story. Which is something that does make sense as odds are she would have grown up hearing this story being told to her but at the same time tho she openly says that we won't find Héra's name in songs which is something that is at odds with the fact that it's story being told to us as that would imply that Éowyn lied and that we can find stories of this character this is something that would have made more sense if she said that it was lesser known story but was still one of her favorites as then we would be able to buy into the fact that this film is having her as an off screen narrator as then it would be like she's telling us a story. With the character of Éowyn being woefully underused in this film as while yes this film does take place hundreds of years before she was even born so there would be no way for her to be in the film alot more the makers of this film could have included a scene at the start of the film where we do get to see her as she is a legacy character afterall so why not take advantage of the fact that you've not only got her character in the film but also have gotten her original actor back playing her by having her in a scene that sets up why she's telling us this story in the first place as that is something that would then make it feel like it was worth having her in the film as only having her in two maybe three parts of the film just makes it feel like that the role of narrator could have gone to any character and it would have made sense heck you even could have said that Sam was making this story up to amuse his kids and it would have worked just as well.

This film tries to do what The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power tried to do as well and that's give us a strong female character without actually doing the work to make her an actually strong female character. As we are told all throughout the opening few minuets of the film of why Héra is meant to be this strong as we are told that she is fearless and that she likes to do the things that the her brothers love to do but we aren't given a reason to care for her character with the character coming across as being nothing more then a stand in for the audience as she has nothing about her that actually makes her a strong female character yet with Éowyn even before we get to the "I am no man" scene in The Return Of The King we are shown that she does care for for her Uncle King Théoden with her willing to stay by his side even when his body was essentially taken over by Saruman and heck we get to see more of personality as we get to see her laugh and we get to see her cry and we get to see over come things all of which do make her a stronger character. Whereas with Héra we don't get any of that as always get told that she's these things and that's not enough to make a female character a strong female character as they need to be given things to over come and we need to see them show off more of there personality granted we see that she cares for her father but that's about heck alot of the time she doesn't need any of the male characters to do anything as she just does everything herself when all that does is make both sets of characters look weak with The Rings Of Power having the same issue as they did the exact same thing with there female characters as well. With the thing that makes this worse is that on paper Héra could have been a really cool character as everything was there to make her a cool character all the makers of this film had to do was make her interesting and that's it but they didn't do that and instead went the easy route to create a strong but not really a strong female character.

The only character that is at the very least somewhat interesting is Wulf due to the fact that he does start the film as a good guy. With him becoming a bad guy by the end of the films first act after he witnesses Héras father kill him after one punch with this being something that does form his motivation as at first he wants Helm dead for killing his father and yet when Helm does die but not at his hands he then switches his attention to Héra who had at the start of the film twice turned down his offer of marriage with him now wanting her dead to end her line due to the fact that her brothers where killed of earlier on in the film with him slowly not only getting more insane the longer the film goes on but also getting more and more greedy and more and more egotistical. With him believing that no one will ever be able to stop him due to the fact that he has an army at his disposal when all Héra has is maybe twenty to thirty men if that and yet it's due to the fact that he gets this huge ego that she was able to win as she was given the time to think up a way that they could win all the while he was busy truing to find a way to storm The Hornberg with this being where the film does make the character out to be a bit dumb and while yes Wulf would naturally believe that the battle is his due to the fact that to his knowledge there is only one way in or out of the Hornberg he is still a character that would listen to what those closest to him are saying even tho he's being blinded by his quest for revenge he still doesn't listen to those that might have been in more battles then him with Targg even telling him at several points that he's won the war.

Now then this film has / had an exact grand total running time of exactly two hours and fourteen minuets and fourteen seconds. Which is something that does oddly enough make this film one of the more shorter films in the Peter Jackson Lord Of the Rings franchise yet even so the film does spend alot of time in giving us pointless backstory for things that we didn't need explaining with the film outright telling us how The Hornberg got it's name changed to Helm's Deep and how Héra discovered the caves inside it all of which are pointless as we didn't need to to know any of that that stuff. However the film does have more then enough plot there to cover that amount of running time in the first place yet the film doesn't use it's time all that wisely as the film doesn't take the time to fully develop it's plot due to the fact that within five maybe ten minuets of the film starting the characters have already started to go to war with each other with the film not really stopping to add things to the plot that might make it appear to be more well thought out and yet when compare this to quite literally any of the other live action Lord Of The Rings films even separate they all have well thought out plots whereas with this film it felt like that the makers of this film where making it up as they went along with this kind of thinking even effecting the films character developing as none of the films characters get any kind of character development. With this being something that is fair enough for the live action films due to the fact that they are telling one whole story over three films and therefor the characters can get there development over the course of those three films and yet here in this film due to the fact tat all of this films characters only appear in this film there should have been more thought and effort into giving them some character development but I really will admit that this film really does gave some really good pacing to it tho.

So now then as this is an action film that really does mean that I have to actually talk about the actual action that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual action that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty really good. Heck the films action is the best part of the film as that's where the film gets to be hugely entertaining to watch as we get to see the characters doing these really cool moves which look really good animated form with the films animation really helping to sell you on the action we're seeing on screen. With the films best action being the attack on Helms Deep during the films third act as that were we get to see all of the characters take part in the battle in someway be it leading the innocent villagers to safety through the mountains or Héra and Wulf duking out at the front of the castle with both of them getting in some really good hits bottom line there is alot of really good action to be found in this film and yet even so we the audience still don't feel anything for the characters due to the fact that the film hasn't given us a reason to care for them and if the film did give us a reason to care for any of it's characters then it is something that would have made it's action scenes all the more better. Heck during Helms death even tho we are meant to feel sad that this main character has frozen to death defending his people we don't feel anything when that is the time that we should have felt something literally anything for his character and yet we don't due to the fact that the film doesn't spend alot of time with him as we only get to see him really in action scenes with the rest of the films many action scenes being really good as well in my freaking opinions anyways / at least. 

Overall whilst this film is quite easily alot more better then anything that The Rings Of Power has put out it's still a far cry from great that this corner of Middle-Earth was as when then have great , talented film makers that are passionate about the source material that we get gold whereas here yes there is an attempt to recapture the magic of those first three films but they just fail to do so in my freaking opinions anyways / at least. Now then i've talked about all of the good and as well as all of the bad things that re in this very film in this very review as such that really does mean that this very film really does earn itself a grand old score of exactly a 6.5 out of 10 from me.

Now then as for where I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this very review well then boys and girls and as well as ladies and gentlemen I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this very review from Blogger . Com and Google Images. With my personally preferred website to use to get images really from this very film being the really great Google Images this is really because of the fact that really all of the images that I really indeed got and really used from Google Images are all really high quality really with all of the images that really are all and of course really currently up and on the really great and the really solid Google Images really are all being really fairly high in quality and as well as them all really being fairly high in definition.