sildarmillion

If I had been comparing The War of the Rohirrim to it's source material, I would not have rated the movie as highly as I did.

Despite the fact that "The Lord of Rings" is right in the title, and the fact that many of Howard Shore's themes were continuously being played, I was able to view this movie without having LoTR-sized expectations.

Here's what I really liked about this movie.

1. On one hand, I am a little tired of stories about "strong female characters" who are more interested in masculine pursuits of horseback riding and sword fighting rather than traditional feminine pursuits. But on the other hand, I appreciated the fact that Hera was not depicted to be as strong as her brothers or cousin. There was a clear distinction in the brute strength possessed by Hera vs. The male characters, but whenever Hera got the upper hand (like in being able to tame the elephant-thing), she did so with her smarts, not with brute strength. This was a welcome deviation from the current crop of stories about "strong female characters".

2. Not having been familiar with the legend of King Helm, I didn't know where the story was going. But the set up of the story (if we are ignoring the LoTR connection) is reminiscent of many romance-genre stories set in a fantasy-ish or historical-ish backdrop. This made me think we were going to get a "Reylo"-esque romance story between Hera and Wulf, and frankly, I was relieved that we didn't.

3. I thought Wulf was portrayed quite well. Even though there is reason to sympathize with him, ultimately, his misfortunes are not an excuse for the way he behaves. His reactions are extreme reactions to his misfortunes, and while there always was the potential for him to be the better man, he continually chose to be petty and vengeful, which, in my opinion, made him a compelling villain.

4. King Helm, of course, was epic. He had to be. This I knew as soon as I heard his name. He wasn't perfect and he was a flawed character, especially in circumstances where he ignored wise counsel from Hera or from his nephew, but what he does to eventually have Helm's Deep named after him was epic. I'll admit that the sequence of events as shown in the movie, could have been done better, but it was still compelling. But the reason this felt epic (at least to me) is because we witnessed the story through Hera's eyes, who always thought of her dad as larger than life, and we see him emerge that way.

What I didn't like about the movie was the ending. I think throughout the movie, Hera demonstrated herself to be smart and capable, and on top of that she deeply cared about the people of Rohan. What she chose at the end, did not make sense. I learned later that the end had to match the published history of Rohan, which, as it turned out mentioned Hera only once and not by name. This means the entire movie tells the story of how Helm's Deep got its name from the perspective of a character who wasn't a player in the story as Tolkien told it -- so lots of creative license was taken. But the ending felt like a cheap attempt to abruptly match with the source material and also bring in more LoTR ties than was needed for the story.

I wanted to watch this classic superhero movie to see how it compares with modern ones.

I was surprised by how much I liked Christopher Reeve's earnest portrayal of Clark Kent. Might be a little too cheesy for modern audiences, but I don't know, I liked it much better than the brooding portrayals of today.

I was surprised by how cartoonish the villains were. They were kind of funny, but their evil plot was so over-the-top, I could not get invested in the danger.

I was surprised by how bad Lois Lane seemed to be in her job. Perhaps it was supposed to be cute that she can't spell, but that just made it hard for me to take her seriously. (Although a modern journalist would have a spell checker so it doesn't matter if they can spell or not.) Her interview scenes didn't seem like she was particularly good at her job and overall, she seemed all bark and no bite. This is a stark contrast to the Lois Lanes in Superman: The Animated Series or even Zach Snyder's movies. This can't be a product of its times, because the first Star Wars movies came out around the same time, and despite limited screen time, Princess Leia never seemed incompetent.

Finally, I was surprised by the big save Superman made at the end. I had heard this happened in Richard Donner's movies. I always thought happened in the later movies. But seeing that it happened in the very first movie, I am left wondering where was there left to go in the sequels?