When discussing The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, make sure you roll those Rs because it’s an anime-style movie now available on Max. This film serves as a prequel to the main events of J.R.R. Tolkien’s famous The Lord of the Rings saga, taking place centuries before all the epic battles and adventures. The setting is in the Land of Men, specifically in Rohan, a realm with a Celtic vibe in its aesthetics, music, and accents. The storyline expands on some historical details mentioned by Tolkien in the appendices, and interestingly, the movie was primarily created to retain the adaptation rights to LOTR to prevent the contract from expiring. This move reminds us of the term “sequel” as defined humorously by Roger Ebert as a “filmed deal.”

The Premise: Set two hundred years before Bilbo Baggins stumbled upon the One Ring, Middle Earth is dealing with regular conflicts rather than the all-out chaos we see later on. We are introduced to Hera, the daughter of Rohan’s King Helm Hammerhand, a skilled horse rider and swordswoman. The plot thickens when Helm gets into a conflict with the power-hungry Lord of Dundening, Freca, who tries to secure the throne by proposing marriage between his son Wulf and Hera. A childhood friendship between Hera and Wulf is revealed through a flashback where they engage in a duel that Hera wins, leaving Wulf scarred, which foreshadows his future villainous nature.

However, Hera has no intention of marrying anyone, as she values her independence and has no interest in traditional gender roles. This leads to a dilemma as the men around her struggle to accept her unconventional ways, hinting at a possible preference for companionship with women. The existence of gay characters in Middle Earth is subtly suggested, especially through the notion of the Shieldmaidens of Rohan, a group that Hera wishes to champion despite its declining presence. Her mentor, Olwyn, stands by her side but is torn between her duty to protect their land and any personal desires she may have.

Anyway. Where was I? Right: Freca doesn’t like being called fat, so he and Helm take it outside and drop the gloves for good old-fashioned fisticuffs. Freca lands a couple of blows but Helm is such a beast, he pounds Freca in the face once and the dude dies instantly. Whoops. This strikes me as a major diplomacy blunder. And so the tension between clans is worsenified for years, until Wulf gathers up some loyalists to launch an assault on Rohan. Helm gathers up his men, and please note how that’s gendered, which means Hera is pissed that her father is too sexist to let her fight. I mean, stabbing people and bleeding out into the dirt is a MAN’S job! They’re outnumbered and there’s a betrayal and some tragic losses and Helm is gravely wounded and the Rohirrim (note: TIL “Rohirrim” is the term for the people of Rohan) beat a retreat to a defensive stronghold that should look familiar to anyone who watched the Peter Jackson LOTRs, as in, aha, that’s why it’s called HELM’S Deep! As Wulf gathers up forces for a siege that’ll last an entire winter and absolutely feel like it to anyone watching, Hera assumes a leadership role. Is destiny calling her? Sure seems like it.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Netflix usually does the anime-spinoff thing – via The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf or Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters and its sequels.

Performance Worth Watching Hearing: There’s no denying the Brian Cox gravitas, even when his voice emerges from the shoddily animated mouth of a hunk of digital celluloid.

Memorable Dialogue: This is far from a great movie, but this was a pretty badass moment:

Hera: I am bride to no man. 

Wulf: Tell me then – to whom are you pledged?

Hera, drawing her sword: Death!

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: War of the Rohirrim’s foundation is passable fantasy storytelling that bears a little dramatic weight within the (sigh) LOTRCU, adhering to the airless tone we encounter in the Rohan sequences of Jackson’s films. The Rohirrim are a beleaguered people, remember, being stupidass Men instead of more noble and selfless Dwarves and Elves; you’ll also recall that noble women like Hera and Eowyn (played by Miranda Otto, who resumes the role here, although strictly as narrator) ended up being saviors of varying degrees for the stubborn dolts with external genitalia. Not that Rohirrim gives us much else of depth beyond setting feminist precedent for stories that come chronologically after it – the characters are pretty flimsy, and so glum, you wonder if Rohan’s leadership condemns people to death for smiling or cracking a joke.

This is but a sliver of what Rohirrim has to offer, though. The rest consists of clumsily staged action, ineffective melodrama and the usual bland expository declarations that tend to sink fantasy and sci-fi films to the bottom of the sea. Kenji Kamiyama – whose credits include animated spinoffs/continuations of Star Wars, Blade Runner, Ghost in the Shell and Ultraman – directs like a hired gun who doesn’t have much ammo (the budget was a relatively slim $30 million – compare that to $78 million for The Wild Robot and $200-plus million for Inside Out 2), and like he’s under someone else’s gun to get this thing done before the IP goes bad like last month’s cottage cheese. 

The animation looks cheap and pasted-together, with shoddy overdubbed voices and foreground characters looking incongruous with their backgrounds. And yet, despite a wide variety of (painfully transparent) creative limitations, the movie sprawls well past the two-hour mark, so yes, the aforementioned crack about the siege was all too true. I’m tempted to highlight the silver lining and assert that, hey, at least the movie makes us feel something, but when that something is impatience tinged with boredom with a moment or two of righteous girlboss fury – well, that just ain’t no good. 

Our Call: The War of the Rohirrim is a disappointment that doesn’t live up to baseline standards of Jackson’s LOTR films – or even his forgettable Hobbit trilogy. SKIP IT.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.