The Lord of the Rings: The
War of the Rohirrim (2024, New Line Cinema)
I … I grow weary in the face
of writing a review of another disappointing LOTR ‘sequel’. To start with, why
does everyone insist on slapping ‘The Lord of the Rings’ onto every
Middle-earth movie these days? I’ll tell you why. The Lord of the Rings
Trilogy was a huge, improbable success, and the producers want a share of
that juju, like people who desire to touch the big winner of a bingo game for
good luck.
And then, since they can’t
explain exactly why the movies work, the writers do their best to mimic what
has gone before in the hopes of replicating the formula. They throw everything at
the wall, every Middle-earth element they can grab, no matter how improbable in
the context of the tale. Thus, in the kingdom of Rohan we see Southrons and
Mumakil (Oliphaunts) from the far east of Middle-earth, a Watcher in the Water
far from Moria or the deep places of the world, and Great Eagles interacting
with humans (or one special human, at least). How Middle-earthy can you get?
There are even a couple of Orcs (voiced by Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan – ‘member
them?) out randomly searching for rings nearly two centuries before Sauron
suspects the One Ring has re-emerged.
Almost as jarring are the
echoing of language and language patterns from the LOTR films. They clunk along
like speedbumps along the road. Eyes must be kept ‘fixed’ on a diversionary
tactic, and so on. There are others. And names, when they are not Tolkien’s,
are singularly unsatisfactory and, well, clunky and simple. The Lord Frygt
(pronounced Fright) is an alarmist on the council; Wrot (Rot) is the name of an
Orc. Wulf’s righthand man is named Targg; I defy anyone to find any name in
Tolkien that ends with a double consonant. One name I do approve of is Ashere,
the name of Hera’s horse, which is the same (more or less) as Aschere, who was
Hrothgar’s counselor in Beowulf.
Which of course brings us to
Hera. Hera is an Icelandic name, and fits in well with the ‘H’ naming tradition
in the Helm family; but unfortunately it may be more familiar as the name of a
Greek goddess (perhaps not entirely a coincidence; the actress who does her
voice is named Gaia Wise: in the final defense of the Hornburg, Hera, Olwyn,
and old Pennicruik seem evocative of the Triple Goddess of Mother, Maiden, and
Crone; goddess power!). It’s also one letter off from ‘Hero’. And Helm’s
daughter, who is not even mentioned by name in the two pages in the Appendices
that this two-hour fourteen-minute film is based on, is the main hero of this
tale.
And what a hero! Where the men
are either obtuse or overly macho, she is always insightful, clever, and
compassionate. She can defeat warriors, trolls, and beasts that others cannot,
and even when she has been trapped in a fortress on starvation rations, she
still has the strength and skills to defeat a well-fed professional warrior in
his prime. Her only restraints seem to be societal expectations that her
culture tries to impose on her and the reluctance of others to see how great
she is. I don’t mind there being a strong female lead, but she could at least
have some weakness. She’s only human, but as written, she’s something of a Mary
Sue. And that isn’t good writing.
In short, The War of the Rohirrim seems to have the same unsatisfactory quality that a line tracing of rich colorful illustration has. If it had tried harder to be its own story, and not a shadow and a ghost of the Trilogy, walking behind it on a ruinous path to the Void, it might have been good. It’s beautifully animated, but it’s an empty grab-bag of echoes and improbable ‘well-it-coulda-been’s and shifty justifications behind the scenes. I’m still on the fence about getting the related action figures. Actually seeing the movie hasn’t moved me any closer. It's no wonder it's already nowhere on the radar anymore.
In a sidenote, I noticed the growth of the Great Eagles with each adaptation of Tolkien. Here one is in the 1977 The Hobbit:
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