I know this movie hasn't done well; in fact, I was the only person in the theater at this showing. Having seen it, my thoughts are a bit mixed.
Things I liked:
The art was often good, even very good. Some of the scenery was outstanding. I like the character design. If there was one fault, it's that in some of the action scenes things looked rather rough.
I liked the characters. I thought they did well in developing the main characters, they had strengths and weaknesses that made them fairly believable. I thought they did well in establishing Hera as a good lead character, but they didn't do so at the expense of the other characters. Helm Hammerhand was the king of king one would expect him to be, his valor in battle was shown, but his stubbornness was shown to be a serious weakness. Among the bad guys, I liked Targg best, as he was concerned with issues of honor.
I thought the overall story held together fairly well.
Things I didn't like:
I think the narration was the main thing that hurt this movie.
So much of what was narrated in the first scene of the story could have been much better shown and not told; in fact, they were showing parts of it as they were telling us what they were showing. Hera was reckless and did crazy thing? The movie opens with her doing such a reckless thing. Her father was exasperated by her but also proud of her? That could easily have been shown.
I think the part of the narration that really honks people off is when the narrator says that while Hera did many great deeds none of those deeds were recorded or her name is not in the tales, with the implication being the Tolkien was part of some conspiracy to erase Hera's name from his tales of Middle Earth.
Overall, the narration was heavy-handed, not very helpful.
Conclusion:
I mostly liked and enjoyed this movie. This may be one I'll watch again. It's not up there with the original LOTR movies, but I'd maybe give a 6 out of 10. If they take out the cringy narration, I'd probably put it up around a 7 or even a 7.5.
Things I liked:
The art was often good, even very good. Some of the scenery was outstanding. I like the character design. If there was one fault, it's that in some of the action scenes things looked rather rough.
I liked the characters. I thought they did well in developing the main characters, they had strengths and weaknesses that made them fairly believable. I thought they did well in establishing Hera as a good lead character, but they didn't do so at the expense of the other characters. Helm Hammerhand was the king of king one would expect him to be, his valor in battle was shown, but his stubbornness was shown to be a serious weakness. Among the bad guys, I liked Targg best, as he was concerned with issues of honor.
I thought the overall story held together fairly well.
Things I didn't like:
I think the narration was the main thing that hurt this movie.
So much of what was narrated in the first scene of the story could have been much better shown and not told; in fact, they were showing parts of it as they were telling us what they were showing. Hera was reckless and did crazy thing? The movie opens with her doing such a reckless thing. Her father was exasperated by her but also proud of her? That could easily have been shown.
I think the part of the narration that really honks people off is when the narrator says that while Hera did many great deeds none of those deeds were recorded or her name is not in the tales, with the implication being the Tolkien was part of some conspiracy to erase Hera's name from his tales of Middle Earth.
Overall, the narration was heavy-handed, not very helpful.
Conclusion:
I mostly liked and enjoyed this movie. This may be one I'll watch again. It's not up there with the original LOTR movies, but I'd maybe give a 6 out of 10. If they take out the cringy narration, I'd probably put it up around a 7 or even a 7.5.