The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim is a new animated Lord of the Rings film from director Kenji Kamiyama. It takes place nearly 200 years before The Lord of the Rings story most of us know, and concerns a conflict between the horse-loving people of Rohan — ruled over by Helm Hammerhand (Brian Cox) with an assist from his daughter Héra (Gaia Wise) — and a Dunlending lord named Wulf (Luke Pasqualino).
I'm a big Lord of the Rings fan from way back, so I was cautiously interested in this movie. The animation looks a little choppy, I told myself, but if the reviews were good I'd try and see this in the theaters.
Well, the reviews are coming in, and while they could be worse, they're not great. Most critics are pretty blah on the movie. Here's a sampling:
- Independent: "The War of the Rohirrim is invested entirely into convincing you it’s just like the films you know and love. Yet, again and again, along comes that sinking suspicion this is just another corporate wolf in sheep’s clothing."
- Screen International: "The War Of The Rohirrim may seem too adjacent a property to muster similar enthusiasm. Consequently, casual viewers may decide to skip this mediocre stopgap and wait for the live-action The Hunt For Gollum."
- Variety: It may please the faithful, but it’s not quite epic enough to give less devoted viewers the same thrill they once felt from the live-action movies.
- The Hollywood Reporter: "Those not familiar with Tolkien minutiae will still be able to enjoy The War of the Rohirrim on its own visually grand, mythic storytelling terms, even if it does eventually seem overlong at 134 minutes."
- GamesRadar: "What could have been an exciting experiment in telling a new tale in a beloved universe in a very different way feels heavily compromised. Kenji Kamiyama and his fellow anime veterans have produced great work before, but this uninspired expansion of the most iconic screen take on Tolkien doesn't allow anyone to show off what they can do best."
In the interest of giving one purely positive review, check out this summary from Polygon: "War of the Rohirrim sets itself apart with its confidence in the human drama of Tolkien’s stories. It’s a Lord of the Rings movie with no rings, no Dark Lord, no wizards, not even a hobbit. Even so, it has more than enough fantastical tragedy and epic adventure to go around."
The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim underperforms at overseas box office
So the crowd is going mild for this one. Another iffy sign is that although The War of the Rohirrim has already opened in 31 territories, thus far it's only brought in $2 million, which is a very low total considering it's being shown on 3,410 screens. It seems that audiences are as about as enthusiastic as the critics, at least overseas.
The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim opens in the U.S this weekend. I don't want to doom the movie before it comes out, but the signs are not looking great. On top of The War of the Rohirrim itself being a little mid, audiences may have been inundated with too many sub-par Lord of the Rings projects over the past several years. First came The Hobbit trilogy, which was more or less successful but isn't as well-remembered as Peter Jackson's original Lord of the Rings movie trilogy. And right now, Amazon is running a TV show called The Rings of Power, which has likewise received mixed reviews. As Screen International said, there's a live-action movie called The Hunt for Gollum in the works, but I'm not confident that will go over much better than The War of the Rohirrim.
To paraphrase the Independent, there's a sense that a lot of these projects are being greenlit because corporate executives think they'll made to please corporate executives think they stand a good chance of making money, not because the creatives behind them have a burning passion for the material. Hopefully The War of the Rohirrim will prove the naysayers wrong when it opens here this Friday.
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