With The Lord of the Rings: The Battle of the Rohirrim a Middle-earth adventure is finally back on the big screen. And in a never-before-seen guise: as Animea Japanese animated film by director Kenji Kamiyama (Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex).
That sounded like a brave step and raised the anticipation of some Tolkien fans higher than any eagle over the Misty Mountains. Especially since the adventure had the support of producer Peter Jackson and Co. After going to the cinema, however, this hopeful flight of hope has to come back down to earth: Although The Battle of the Rohirrim has some good moments, the film immediately loses its fight to be a convincing Lord of the Rings film
three Fronts.
1. The new Lord of the Rings film is too emulating The Two Towers to stand on its own two feet
183 years before Frodo’s journey to the ring, an enemy attacks the Middle-earth empire Rohan. The king of the Rohirrim riders, Helm Hammerhand, refuses the hand of his daughter Héra to the noble son Wulf and kills his father in a duel. The young Dunlander then vows revenge and mobilizes an army of wild men to overthrow his enemy. After heavy losses, Rohan’s people retreat from the capital of Edora besieged fortress walls the Hornburg, but a fight is inevitable even there.
Who the rough plot of The Battle of the Rohirrim seems familiarwho has probably seen The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. In the second part of Peter Jackson’s trilogy, an attacked Rohan ruler (Théoden) also seeks refuge in the mountain valley of Helm’s Deep. There, too, the king’s daughter (Éowyn) later becomes a heroine. The fact that this time it is not Saruman’s Uruk-hai army, but enemy people who are attacking the fortress, is of little importance.
Unmissable Lord of the Rings references dominate the rest of the film. So that we don’t forget that we are moving in Tolkien’s world, large eagles line up with guards in the water and oliphants are felled with the tried and tested leg cut. When Saruman makes a brief appearance and orcs look for rings away from the plot, the blatant fan service takes over.
At the latest, the last dropped name of a famous figure, who really all know, makes it clear shortly before the credits: The Battle of the Rohirrim may appear to be a war film, but it proves astonishing little fighting courage to go his own way.
2. The Battle of the Rohirrim stumbles where it has to convince Lord of the Rings fans – in the animation
After 15 Lord of the Rings film adaptations, which most recently relied on live-action films, The Battle of the Rohirrim takes a big step and returns to an animated Middle-earth after 44 years. At the same time that is Animated film guise is the biggest hurdle for Lord of the Rings fans: Do the trailers and pre-released 8 minutes of the film do enough convincing to make even those who otherwise have less interest in animated entertainment make a pilgrimage to the cinema?
A visually stunning animation style would be the best way to convince doubters of The Battle of the Rohirrim. Unfortunately, this is exactly what the new Lord of the Rings adventure lacks. Choppy movements, expressionless faces and few ideas for using the cameraless freedom of animated entertainment detract from the enjoyment of the film. Some action sequences, such as a crazy Oliphant with rolling eyes or a trip into the snowstorm, definitely develop their pull – but unfortunately they are the exceptions.
Instead of showing how powerful anime can look, The Battle of the Rohirrim delivers a half-baked mix of cartoon and reality. The most unpleasant scenes are those in which… Animation styles collide. For example, when at the beginning a cartoon eagle circles over almost photorealistic mountain peaks or a burning siege tower with a lot of CGI crashes into a drawn wall. Then there is an unpleasant crunch in the visual gear. This will certainly not convert anyone to the exciting medium of animation, as Arcane or Blue Eye Samurai recently did on Netflix.
Since Disney has been re-releasing its animated classics as live-action films for some time now, many people can certainly understand the appeal of meeting the well-known characters and places “in real life”. But the calculation doesn’t work the other way around: Even if The Battle of the Rohirrim is based heavily on Peter Jackson’s locations, we don’t experience the enlightenment of traveling through Edora and Helm’s Deep in animated form – the anime remains too smooth for that. An animation style with character à la The Last Unicorn or Akira (and less in the Castlevania look) would have been good here.
3. The new Lord of the Rings characters lack character depth
For all the parallels tried, dramatically opened doors with a real Aragorn still work best. Which leads us to the final problem: Although The Battle of the Rohirrim certainly has potential for exciting characters, they remain Characters with their limited facial expressions and motivation pale: Heroine Héra may be reminiscent of shield maiden Éowyn, but beyond her love of animals and fighting spirit, she does not gain a profile that goes beyond the cliché of a “strong, free woman”.
The only recognizable characteristic of her father Helm Hammerhand is already in his name: he can fell opponents with a single punch, which in the production sometimes borders on the ridiculous. Even strong (English) voices from Gaia Wise, Brian Cox and narrator Miranda Otto (Éowyn in the Lord of the Rings trilogy) don’t change that.
Opponent Wulf remains reduced to the reviled lover and old childhood friend. This is about as original as the exhausted close combat scenes, in which it only becomes clear after several seconds who has received the killing blow. It’s hardly surprising that actually important characters, like Héra’s cousin Fréaláf, are given almost no space at all when even the main characters don’t sparkle.
The most recent cinematic excursion to Middle-earth could have brought its audience closer to exciting facets of the equestrian nation of Rohan. However, Lord of the Rings fans will not find any new knowledge about the Rohirrim here, nor will they find any characters that they can set their hearts on. (No matter how hard a squire tries to become Rohan’s Samwise.)
So the Lord of the Rings anime is not the masterpiece I was hoping for become. That doesn’t mean that the film can’t still evoke a few Lord of the Rings feelings from time to time. But despite the anime packaging, you won’t find a rousing or groundbreaking Tolkien interpretation that sets the course for an exciting Middle-earth future in the cinema.