Michael's Movie Grade: B
A very entertaining anime prequel to Lord of the Rings.
With this movie, popular anime director Kenji Kamiyama (Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Eden of the East, Napping Princess (2017), Eien no 831 (2022), Blade Runner: Black Lotus) directs an animated prequel to Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films (Jackson serves as an executive producer). The film is a delightful mix of an anime fantasy, and the world J.R.R. Tolkien created in his classic books. In many ways this may come off more as a typical anime fantasy film than a Lord of the Rings movie, but it is a quite good one. The main character, while not exactly complex is very likable and easy to care about. We get invested in her character arc and enjoy seeing her grow into the ruler we know she is capable of being. The villain is also quite wonderful. He feels like an incredible threat to our heroes and is a great example of how vengeance can completely consume a person. The fantasy and world building are fantastic. Like in Tolkien's books or Jackson's films, the world here feels completely real to us.
The artwork here is simply beautiful to look at. It is full of great detail and helps make this fantasy world feel all the more real to us. However, the actual animation (that is to say the movement of the characters) is quite limited and stiff. The characters often stand there with nothing but their mouth's moving, which makes this look more like a TV cartoon than a theatrical film. This is especially true in any dialogue heavy scenes. However, many of the action scenes handle this limited animation better, having more of a cinematic quality than the more dialogue heavy scenes.
This movie does suffer from too many characters and too long of a runtime. The film does tend to drag at times, especially in the first act. The sheer number of characters also makes it so that some of them are not allowed to be properly fleshed out. Worse is that sometimes, you will forget that certain characters exist until they reappear for an important plot point.
While not without flaws this is good time at the movies for anime fans.
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