The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim (2024)

Looking back, every Middle-earth project announced since 2003 — from Amazon’s $1 billion fiasco to that Andy Serkis’ upcoming Gollum movie no one asked for — has felt like an uninspired attempt to cash in on Tolkien’s brand recognition, and little more.

You’d be forgiven for thinking that last year’s “The War of the Rohirrim” was going to be more of the same. After all, it’s the first Middle-earth movie not being helmed by Peter Jackson since 1980, and its story is drawn from a tiny paragraph from Tolkien’s appendices that briefly outlines the royal lineage of Rohan. But if there ever was a test case to suggest that bringing in new blood and focusing on standalone animated movies is the best way to breathe new life into the franchise and steer the ship forward in the future, this might just be it.

The stakes are plain: King Helm Hammerhand of Rohan refuses to marry off his daughter Héra and kills a warring Dunlending lord. In retaliation, the lord’s son Wulf vows revenge, ravages his land, and forces Helm and his people to retreat to the fortress that will become known as Helm’s Deep. Sure, the characterization might be a bit thin, and the anime art style (though quite stunning to look at) will be a deal breaker for some people. But Kenji Kamiyama just delivered something many of us had been clamoring for ages: A fresh take on Tolkien’s fantasy world that draws deep on Middle-earth’s mythology to tell an awesome, self-contained story full of badass characters we had yet to see on screen while keeping the nostalgia-baiting to the bare minimum. It rules.