film

Film Review: War of the Rohirrim

/ Peter Martuneac / 2 Comments

After a long wait, I finally got around to seeing the latest media entry into J.R.R. Tolkien’s world of Middle-Earth this Christmas season, the animated film ‘War of the Rohirrim’. My short, spoiler-free review is that the film was adequate. I kept my expectations low as the release date approached, having learned my lesson from Amazon’s ‘Rings of Power’, and that ended up being the correct choice.

The film is fine. No better and no worse than that. Now, on to the full review!

Spoilers ahead

The film is your typical high-fantasy fare: plenty of swordplay, orcs and other monsters make appearances, and a bit of magic. Hera, daughter of Helm Hammerhand, King of Rohan, is propositioned by her father’s rival, a warlord who seeks the throne, to marry his son. Insults are exchanged, the rival is accidentally killed by the king in a fistfight, and the man’s son, Wulf, vows vengeance.

(By the way, I will note that agreeing to a fistfight with a man who is literally called Hammerhand was probably not this villain’s wisest decision)

You can probably guess the rest of the plot. Some have always seen this level of predictability in Tolkien’s stories and any works derived from his writing as a weakness, but there’s something to be said for the simplicity of it. Not every piece of media we consume needs to be a series of curveballs. Is it nice to be surprised sometimes? Sure, but as we’ve seen with Game of Thrones, eventually you’ve turned convention on its head so many times that the twists become tiresome and expected.

So yeah. War ensues, lives are lost, families are broken, but Hera eventually leads her father’s people to prevail with a little bit of guts, a little ingenuity, and a healthy dose of high-fantasy magic.

What did I like about the movie? For one, the music was excellent. It always set the scene nicely and helped keep me in the story. The voice acting was also terrific. Brian Cox plays Helm Hammerhand the King and stole the show, as far as I’m concerned. As a matter of fact, seeing his name in the casting was what got me excited for this movie in the first place, over a year ago.

Miranda Otto, who played Theoden King’s niece Eowyn in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy, served as the narrator. I really appreciated that nod to the original trilogy and hearing her familiar voice first was like a warm welcome by an old friend as we returned to Middle-Earth.

Speaking of returns, the opening shot of the film has one of my all-time favorite transitions. It begins with live footage of a flyover of a hilly meadow and a rushing stream, possibly archived from the original trilogy, and as we get closer to ground the picture subtly swaps to the animated version. You almost don’t catch it, and it is beautiful.

Everything else was either fine or a tad disappointing. The animation was inconsistent: at times breathtaking and at others a little sloppy. One fear I had going into the film was that Hera would be your typical ‘Mary Sue’ character, inexplicably fighting off entire hordes of orcs on her own. Mercifully, she only engages in direct combat with enemy soldiers twice, and neither encounter crosses over into the absurd.

Some of the relationships seemed ill-defined, especially between Hera and Wulf, the main antagonist. They give almost no background to these two characters who are supposed to be childhood friends, so the emotional climax of the film doesn’t hit like the director intended.

Finally, I know I said I appreciated the nod to Peter Jackson’s original trilogy by bringing in Miranda Otto to voice the narrator, but there is such a thing as too many nods. Some of the dialogue for Helm Hammerhand was ripped directly from Theoden King in The Two Towers or The Return of the King, with only a word or two changed.

Come on, folks. You’re writing what’s supposed to be an impassioned speech and call to arms just before a battle. Are you really going to take this opportunity to plagiarize yourselves?

Also, Saruman the White is introduced at the end of the film, which was delightful, but moments later Gandalf the Grey is then mentioned. Apparently, he heard of Hera’s telling that she overheard some Mordor orcs discussing their master’s quest for magical rings, and he’s sent a letter requesting that she visit him.

This is wholly out of character for a guy known as the Wandering Wizard. When Gandalf seeks information, he does not send letters requesting that people come to him. He hops on his horse and arrives suddenly to demand an audience. I suspect they chose this route as a way to write Hera out of history. In Tolkien’s writings, she is not even given a name but she was made the main character for this story. How then to make it so that this heroine is not sung of in the annals of Rohan’s great battles? By giving the crown to her cousin, sending Hera off to meet Gandalf in a distant land, where, according to the narrator, she remained wild and free to the end of her days.

There’s more I could discuss but this post has already run long. All in all, as I said above, this film was fine. If you’re a Tolkien fanatic like myself, I highly recommend watching it, but only once. I won’t be adding this to my collection of Blu-rays.

Film Review: 1917

/ Peter Martuneac / 5 Comments

I don’t typically watch war movies these days. Since having participated in a war myself, such films have lost their sheen for me. I do make exceptions, however. I watched “12 Strong” because it’s probably the only blockbuster film about my war to be made and now I’ve seen the 2019 film “1917”.

This film, as you can probably guess from the title, is set during The Great War, aka World War I. There are just two main characters, two young British soldiers, Lance Corporals William Schofield and Thomas Blake, tasked with an impossible mission: carry a message across no-man’s-land, passing close to a German-occupied town, to a division that is about to stumble into a trap. A simple premise that is done beautifully.

Everything about this film was done well. The accompanying musical score directed by Thomas Newman was a perfect match, at times haunting and other times inspiring. There is also an a capelle rendition of the classic folk song “I am a Poor Wayfaring Stranger” towards the end, sung by a soldier to his silent comrades, that left me at a loss for words.

George Mackay and Dean-Charles Chapman are excellent in the roles as Schofield and Blake. They truly captured the spirit of two young men who daily live in fear of death but put a brave face over it, whether that be through humors, letters from home, or allowing themselves to be fully immersed in their work.

Benedict Cumberbatch also appears in the film briefly as Colonel Mackenzie. Though he is only on the screen for about two minutes, he runs away with the scene. It’s remarkable when an actor can suck the air out of the room in which the audience sits, even in a supporting role.

What truly elevated this film, however, is the manner in which it’s shot. There are no scene breaks, no POV changes, and no cuts. The film is a continuous, running shot. The effect of this method is astounding and a wholly new experience. Just one example, as Schofield and Blake approach a seemingly abandoned country house during their mission, they decide they must check the house for enemies.

In any other movie, here there would likely be a scene change, cutting to the young Lance Corporals suddenly on the porch of the house or kicking in the front door. Not in 1917. Here, once Schofield and Blake decide to advance on the house, you follow them literally every step of the way. Down the hill, around the pond, up the bank, and then over to the porch. It’s only about 18 seconds, but it’s 18 seconds of filming you would never see in an ordinary film.

Suffice it to say, I was fully immersed in this film. It takes you right down to the ground of a brutal land war, giving you a grunt’s-eye-view. There’s not too much violence in it; there’s a scene of somewhat unsavory hand-to-hand combat, but it takes place during the night and in a shadowed corner, sparing the viewer anything too gruesome.

And, of course, there is heart-wrenching loss. It’s painful to watch and impossible not to shed a tear.

As with other war movies, I will not watch this one again, but I’m very glad I saw it once. I highly recommend it to anyone who appreciates a new cinematic experience.