The Most Controversial Fantasy Film of 2024 Is Finally Streaming
Don't sleep on The War of the Rohirrim.
One of the most common complaints about the Middle-earth saga of J.R.R. Tolkien is that everything that’s not The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings is hard to understand. This argument is essentially correct. From The Silmarillion to The Rings of Power, to the in-development Hunt for Gollum films, the ancillary of Lord of the Rings stories can feel paradoxically overwhelming and also, oddly inessential, leading to general confusion from the casual Middle-earth fan.
In 2024, one new Lord of the Rings movie fulfilled both criteria of what makes LOTR stuff confusing. The anime film The Lord of the Rings: The War of Rohirrim is by definition inessential. And, because it requires knowledge of obscure lore, it’s also overwhelming. And yet, despite, or because of these facts, it’s also somehow great. In terms of critical consensus, the film currently holds a 49 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes, while having an 82 percent score from general audiences. And that’s because, in this case, the general audience is who this movie was for. The War of Rohirrim just hit Max and if you missed it in theaters, it’s very much worth your time. Mild spoilers ahead.
Set a century before the events of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, the story of The War of Rohirrim is extremely specific. Extrapolated from the appendices of Return of the King, specifically the section called Appendix A: Annals of the Kings and Rulers. In it, there are a few details about King Helm, a ruler of Rohan before the time of the War of the Ring. Good old Appendix A didn’t tell us much about Helm, other than he had a conflict with another ruler named Freca; and it's from this conflict that The War of Rohirrim spins most of its tale.
But if you were to take a few steps back, the reason why The War of Rohirrim succeeds is because it doesn’t require you to know any of that. In fact, in some ways, knowing anything about the LOTR origins of the story could hurt your enjoyment of the film because it would put you on the lookout for a ton of Easter eggs and connections. Yes, those connections are there — including some Orcs on orders from Sauron to find certain kinds of jewelry — but unlike the majority of Rings of Power, the references and connections in The War of Rohirrim don’t exist to drive the story. Instead, the references (giant eagles! Saruman!) enrich the story for the faithful rather than get in the way.
And that’s because surprise, surprise, most of the script from Jeffrey Addis, Will Matthews, Phoebe Gittins, and Arty Papageorgiou invents a ton of stuff. Primarily, The War of Rohirrim introduces us to King Helm’s (Brian Cox) daughter Hera (Gaia Wise) as the primary protagonist, a shield maiden who, we’re told, has been erased from Middle-earth history. Narrated by Miranda Otto — the actress who played Éowyn from The Two Towers (2002) and Return of the King (2003) — the ethos of the film wants us to believe that this isn’t a vague prequel to the idea of the books, but rather, a true prequel to the Peter Jackson film. But again, that promise only really applies to people who really want to scratch their heads about the very specific history of the kingdom of Rohan. It’s a cool connection but not one that requires any more thought than saying the word "cool."
Vaguely coded as Rey and Kylo Ren figures, Hera is buddies with a guy named Wulf (Luke Pasqualino), who, of course, is the son of King Freca, who King Helm kills with one punch. Not only does this plunge the Dunlendings into a war with the people of Rohan, it also ruins Wulf and Hera’s friendship, which was almost a marriage. If all of that sounds a bit cliché it very much is. But, thankfully, the acting, direction from Kenji Kamiyama, and pacing are so engrossing that you hardly care. The War of Rohirrim is the type of fantasy story that says, yes, you’ve seen this all before, but that’s also what we’re going for.
Hera versus Wulf.
There’s a sort of Disney princess narrative arc in The War of Rohirrim which creates a sense of innocence that insulates it from any serious complaints. Hera is fierce and likable. Wulf is a misunderstood bad boy who eventually becomes a full-on villain. Eagles fly, elephants are ridden, and King Helm comes back from the dead to bring in that all-important element of magic.
One of the best things about The War of Rohirrim is that in telling the weird, ghostly story of King Helm, the film keeps things mysterious. Without spoiling the movie, what happens to King Helm could have been made into a very, very overt Lord of the Rings Easter egg. In fact, the game Middle-earth: Shadow of War took King Helm’s fate and turned it into the most obvious thing possible: that apocryphally, he was one of the Nazgûl.
The fact that The War of Rohirrim mostly pulls this punch is very much to its credit. In fact, restraint is the name of the game with this fantasy epic. The movie feels big, but very small simultaneously. It also doesn’t interfere with too much of how we feel about Lord of the Rings, making it a safe-ish side quest with plenty of sword-swinging charm. If not messing up Middle-earth lore sounds like a low bar for praise, that’s fair. But, even for the most skeptical Tolkien fans, The War of Rohirrim should be watched with an open mind. And afterward, we should all ask ourselves a simple question: Wouldn’t it be great to have more self-contained Rings movies like this?
