Yeah, okay, I did not enjoy that. Like, it could have been worse? But it wasn't good. I often found it outright irritating. Assorted notes below the cut.
The animation was fine. The backgrounds were gorgeous, but I personally don't like it when the level of rendering on the backgrounds is vastly different to the level of rendering on the characters. It's a specific style, I know, but the mismatch just doesn't work for me. I think it makes the characters look out of place in their environment.
I found the animation pretty stiff. Like, again, it was generally serviceable, and it was occasionally very good in certain action scenes. But overall, I found a lot of the movement and expressions kind of stiff. Like it was too focused on looking pretty (the detail on the costumes was impressive) to be... truly expressive? Arguably, this is a personal style taste thing again.
Okay, I'm going to try to be more chronological from here.
The immediate fatphobia, colorism, and racism soured me pretty early on, and the film did not win me back. If anything, it became increasingly racist, orientalist, etc. in both design and writing choices.
Like, this is a huge problem in the Jackson movies as well, so I don't want to seem like I'm picking on WotR here. And Tolkien has always had racism and orientalism issues, even before the Jackson movies decided to go HARD on the racist "barbarian" designs for all of the antagonist armies. Despite having 20 years to reflect on that, WotR just... kept up that awful choice?
Anyway, I hated the fact that they made Wulf's father Freca fat, dark-skinned, dark-haired, with a large nose, and then pitted him against these very pale, very blond Rohirrim. General Targg is noticeably brown-skinned. Wulf himself is pretty dark. They're allied with Southron men (who have the EXACT same orientalist look as the Jackson films despite taking place 300 years earlier) and have oliphants on their side. That felt very gross.
Detour from the racism for a moment: the way that the oliphants were animated was VERY strange to me. They reminded me of octopuses for some reason? They did not move convincingly like elephants, which made it hard to suspend disbelief. They didn't act like... animals. They're just these incredibly bizarre monsters that just... rampage wildly until dead.
Which actually ties in well to the racism... So, going back to that... the Dunlendings / hill-people did not behave like actual people. Okay, so, firstly, again, their designs are racist. Randomly placed furs and "barbarian" skull helmets are stupidly impractical and irrational.
Secondly, the way they behaved was also nonsensical, which is again racist in the way that the "Faceless, Fearless Army of Evil" trope always is. None of the Dunlendings besides Wulf and Targg had names or real characters. Their only motivation was apparently money. They were ridiculously willing to follow Wul, In aAf, murder everyone including women and children, and throw themselves recklessly forward until they abruptly all became cowards at the end. They were basically... orcs. Orcs again.
And there are many, MANY problems with orcs in both the Jackson films and Tolkien's original work, but... some behavioural stuff is handwaved away by the fact that those Faceless, Fearless Armies of Evil are perhaps created by these dark lords, and are motivated by the fact that they have evil demi-gods like Sauron and Saruman and the Witch King at their backs. In-universe, the orcs are kind of non-people to their powerful magical overlords, sure.
The Dunlendings in WotR are supposed to be ordinary men. This is supposed to be a conflict between ordinary men. But it's just... redoing LotR in many regards. The conflict was so two-dimensional. The characters were all quite two-dimensional. Wulf as a villain is just violently mad with grief. It's entirely unclear to me why anyone would have betrayed Helm for Wulf.
Sieges in the middle of winter make your army very, VERY unhappy with you. Which the movie did show, but... still. What were the Dunlendings eating? How were they staying warm? Why would they stick around through the winter without Wulf lying to them about treasure from the beginning? I just really wasn't convinced that the Dunlendings were... people and had any reason to be loyal to Wulf. Generic fantasy bandits who love murder and money above all common sense are boring.
Almost all of the action scenes were ridiculous. The Jackson films have many absurd moments too, but this was... the worst of the Jackson films constantly. I couldn't suspend my disbelief. Helm killing Freca with a punch was probably the most realistic moment? Otherwise, people were jumping around like superheroes.
The war tactics and strategies on display were also infuriatingly stupid. The script wants certain characters in certain places at certain times, and it is incredibly contrived, especially when the Rohirrim are fighting for and driven out of Edoras.
At one point, an oliphant pushed against an Edoras wall and made it explode. Incredibly bold to have that happen in the same movie that Wulf builds a wooden bridge and has it fall down onto the wall of the Hornburg. That stupid bridge should have snapped into pieces upon impact.
Also, incredibly bold to show the characters being concerned about limited firewood, then show us them unnecessarily burning candles and torches constantly, and also having open doors and windows in the middle of winter. I'm the sort of annoying person to comment on unrealistic numbers of candles and torches to begin with, but specifically commenting on the limited supplies during a siege IS giving me permission to be annoying.
I hated Helm's last stand. Like, this man was bedridden and unconscious for weeks? They must have been desperately feeding him broth to keep him alive. Being bedridden and not moving for a long time fucks up your body. But this guy loses no muscle mass? He gets up and slips away and is taking guys out no problem? In winter? Without a cloak or a hat or SLEEVES? What the fuck was he EATING out there? I could not suspend my disbelief.
When they started with the "Wraith of Helm Hammerhand" stuff happening after a coma, I did not really like that idea. When the movie presented the idea that the wraith was actually some orcs preying on the Dunlendings at night, I actually REALLY liked that as a twist. That made sense to me. When the movie reversed on that to show Helm Hammerhand alive in a fucking blizzard and kicking unbelievable ass after his (months long?) coma, I was honestly really angry at the movie. They presented a reasonable explanation and then trampled on it with something unbelievably ridiculous.
The orcs searching for rings because of orders from Mordor felt unnecessary to me as an element. I really felt like this film didn't need to be tied to LotR like that. Didn't like that bit of it. They really could have just been random orcs or goblins taking advantage of a human conflict.
Oh! Speaking of unnecessary LotR references, I really HATED the bit before the battle beside Edoras where Helm Hammerhand did the "Death!" cry from "Return of the King" before his army did their stupid nighttime charge into a bunch of arrows. This film did NOT earn that.
I think that cry belonged to Eomer in the LotR books, given to Theoden in the LotR movies, and it makes sense there because everyone thinks they're facing the end of the world. Rohan is facing an evil, immortal demi-god's terrifying army for the fate of all of Middle-Earth. It makes NO sense for Helm to do the "Death!" cry before a battle he thinks he's going to win. That cry belongs to SOMEONE ELSE in a SPECIFIC terrible situation! It's not earned here!!!
Frealaf's charge down the mountainside also just felt like a fan-service-y repeat that did not actually service me. Like, we did this already with Gandalf and Eomer in "The Two Towers"? Do something NEW.
Generally speaking, I found a lot of the writing and dialogue stiff and disjointed and unearned. The characters were just... saying things and it didn't feel like the movie was really showing me these things to be true. All of the supposedly inspirational stuff with Hera at the end just felt empty to me. I feel like I didn't really see her connected to the people in her care. Most of the background and minor characters felt like props.
I wanted to like Hera, but she was just... kind of a nothing character to me in the end. I thought the move with the oliphant and the tentacle creature was kind of clever, if disgusting to watch, but the thing with the wedding dress at the end just felt silly. And the thing with the eagle and the armor felt like something that should have maybe been tried weeks and weeks ago.
I just... wasn't very compelled by Hera. This may be partially because I was already soured by the design choices, the stilted dialogue, the contrived character movement, and the ridiculous action scenes, but I don't think the movie really showed her to be a good leader. A good fighter and rider, sure, but not a charismatic and thoughtful leader. So, I guess it tracks that she ran off on her own at the end of the movie to go adventuring, rather than... stay with her people to rebuild.
Hera felt to me as two-dimensional as everyone else in this movie, really. Some characters had more to them than others, but none of them felt... truly nuanced to me... or particularly likeable. I don't know if I'd say that anyone in this movie got any compelling character development. Circumstances changed, but I think pretty much all of the characters stayed more or less the same the whole way through.
I don't think I can point to any one thing that I think could be changed to "fix" this movie. The whole thing was just... kind of weak... in my opinion. Underwhelming and flat. Stiff and awkward and contrived. Unoriginal and unnecessarily repetitive.
Wow, that sounds incredibly mean. Okay, let me reiterate that I did find the backgrounds gorgeous and some of the animation quite good, even if I personally did not like most of the designs. Plot-wise, some of the ideas here are not inherently terrible. It's just that the movie undercut itself and its potential constantly with contrived plot beats, racist designs and writing for the antagonists, awkward dialogue, and silly action scenes that broke my suspension of disbelief for being physically unrealistic or just obviously a bad idea tactically.
Maybe a fun watch if you already like LotR and also like complaining.
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