Tag: horseback

Categories
Animation Features Movies

The Lord
of the Rings:
The War
of the Rohirrim

Director – Kenji Kamiyama – 2024 – US – Cert. 12a – 134m

****

A story of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth, set around 200 years before The Lord of the Rings – English language anime is out in UK cinemas on Friday, December 13th

This narrative is based on one of the appendices in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, (although checking my copy of the 1979 Unwin paperback edition, it’s not there, so it’s unclear when this appendix first appeared). The Kingdom of Rohan and the Battle of Helm’s Deep are familiar from Peter Jackson’s LOTR trilogy, as is the character of Éowyn (voice: Miranda Otto, reprising her role) who serves here as a narrator, the tale taking place around 200 years before the events in LOTR.

Wulf (voice: Elijah Tamati) and Hèra (voice: Bea Dooley) are childhood friends, sweethearts even. She is something of a tomboy, riding out of the small fiefdom – from where her father Helm Hammerhand (voice: Brian Cox) rules his Kingdom of Rohan – to feed a giant eagle, or engage in friendly, hand-to-hand, sword and shield combat with Wulf, at which task she bests him.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Kingdom of the
Planet of the Apes

Director – Wes Ball – 2024 – US – Cert. 12a – 145m

*****

The fourth entry in the current franchise reboot takes place several generations after the previous three films when apes live in scattered communities and humans have lost the power of speech – out in UK cinemas on Thursday, May 9th

Noa (Owen Teague) has deep-seated feelings of failure. His father is the head of the Eagle Clan, a tribe of chimps who live in symbiosis with trained eagles, and Noa thinks nothing of scaling the highest local rock face to steal his own eagle egg for later bird rearing. He goes on such quests with his two loyal friends, the male Anaya (Travis Jeffery) and the female Soona (Lydia Peckham). He also values the wisdom of Raka (Peter Macon), an orangutan with considerable knowledge of the generations-old teachings of Ceasar.

Noa spots a human girl (Freya Allan) sneaking around the village and environs. A short while later, all hell breaks loose as a cavalry of masked apes attack and burn the village. Noa resolves to leave the safety of the local valley and venture into the land beyond on horseback, accompanied by Raka. They soon realise the non-speaking girl is following on foot, and no sooner have they coax her into joining their quest than they run into first a herd of humans at a small forest pool, then the mounted masked gorillas from whom they must rescue the silent girl.… Read the rest