A Familiar Tune in a New Key
There’s a moment near the end of The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim when Héra—daughter of Rohan’s legendary King Helm Hammerhand—rides into battle wearing an old bridal gown, sword in hand, daring the enemy to cross a burning bridge. It’s a striking image, mythic in scale, and it captures everything this Lord of the Rings anime prequel wants to be: bold, tragic, defiant. Unfortunately, much of what comes before it is a lot more scattered than stirring.
Tales from the Deep Past
Set 200 years before Frodo ever sees the inside of Bag End, the film centers on Helm Hammerhand (voiced with gravelly grandeur by Brian Cox), the gruff King of Rohan who unwittingly sparks a war with the Dunlendings by punching their leader to death in the snow. His daughter Héra (Gaia Wise) becomes the heart of the story—a would-be shieldmaiden caught between family duty, political manipulation, and the slow unraveling of her homeland.
She’s a solid addition to Middle-earth lore, even if her arc—determined heroine becomes warrior leader—isn’t exactly uncharted territory. Still, Gaia Wise does strong work with the role, giving Héra a spark that occasionally cuts through the otherwise grim tone.
A War of Politics, Grief, and Vengeance
Wulf, the Dunlending antagonist (Luke Pasqualino), is more interesting than your average Tolkien villain. He’s not some necromantic ghost or dark sorcerer—just a man gutted by grief and vengeance. The film plays with this more grounded conflict, rooting its war in historical injustice rather than the shadow of Sauron. There’s something timely in that tension… though the film doesn’t always dig deep enough into the politics to make it really land.
The film wants to be both an intimate family drama and a sweeping war epic, but it struggles with pacing. Some scenes—like Helm’s quiet grief or the final stand at the Hornburg—work beautifully. Others feel like exposition speedruns, piling on betrayals, battles, and name-drops with little time to breathe.
A Bold But Uneven Visual Experiment
This is where things get divisive. Visually, Rohirrim takes big swings. The blend of 2D animation with 3D environments gives it a unique flavor, but the execution isn’t always elegant. Some sequences are gorgeous—the snow-covered mountains, the golden halls of Edoras—but others feel oddly stiff, the characters floating against their digital backdrops.
Director Kenji Kamiyama clearly draws on anime legends like Miyazaki and Kurosawa, but the transitions between anime aesthetics and Peter Jackson’s visual legacy can feel clunky. It doesn’t help that the film sometimes looks more like a high-end animatic than a finished feature.
Nostalgia and New Blood
Fans of The Lord of the Rings will find a few familiar comforts. The music borrows heavily from Howard Shore’s iconic Rohan themes, Miranda Otto returns to narrate as Éowyn, and there’s even a ghostly cameo from Saruman via archival Christopher Lee audio. These nostalgic touches help tie it into Jackson’s universe, even if they occasionally feel like they’re papering over the gaps.
Héra is clearly meant to echo Éowyn—a woman out of step with her time, driven by loss and stubborn hope. But she doesn’t get the same time or emotional depth, and while Wise gives her all, the script doesn’t quite deliver the character arc she deserves.
The Final Horn Call
The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim wants to be an epic. It wants to be tragic, thrilling, mythic. And sometimes, it is. But more often, it’s an ambitious side quest that doesn’t quite justify its runtime or its place in the larger Tolkien canon. It’s not a failure—far from it—but it’s more lore expansion than emotional knockout.
If you’re deep into Middle-earth, there’s enough here to make the journey worthwhile. But if you’re hoping for a return to the heights of The Two Towers, temper your expectations.
Final Score: 3/5
A well-intentioned and sometimes gripping addition to the Lord of the Rings saga, but weighed down by uneven pacing, inconsistent animation, and a story that never quite lives up to its potential. It’s worth the journey—but maybe not the hype.