This is a Girl Boss story with the main character bordering on being a " Mary Sue". A Mary Sue is a character (usually female) that is outstanding in every way, who never loses a physical fight or challenge, intellectual superior to everyone else, who always is right, who has no flaws or foibles. Unfortunately these type characters are boring in their perfection and come across as bland and uninteresting.
Hera fits that mold, which hurts the story. Hera beats every male she fights in medieval combat even when they were bigger, stronger and faster than herself. In fact, even her much older Shield Maiden companion does the same - besting every single male. This subverts the believability of the plot as strength, power and youth really matter in sword fighting using heavy steel weapons and even heavier shields. Hera gives advice to her father, the king, which is always ignored and/or belittled. Of course we will later find out that she is always right, making the plot predictable. Finally, Hera rejects any romance in this story, making her even less interesting and one dimensional.
The upsides of the movie are several. Excellent cartoon art, outstanding voice actors and very good musical score. The cartoon renditions of the main characters was excellent. There are many Tolkien elements injected into the story, although some are dropped as "member berries" from the books or films. This movie obviously had a good budget and people willing to work to make this great. Unfortunately it was let down by the plot and storyline.
In order to constantly uphold Hera's brilliance and superior strategic & tactical expertise her father is portrayed as rash, undiplomatic, quick to anger, making huge strategic & tactical blunders and almost always rejecting sage advice from his own counsel. He never does anything right. Helm Hammerhead is only good at fist fighting and able to kill with his punch - but is that really the quality of a great leader? His sons are brave and true but mostly die stupidly and alone. Only Hera is left to rescue her kingdom from such obvious male buffoonery and even must emotionally buck up older male leaders who give up when the chips are down. In summary, this basic story is a weaker copy of the second Jackson LOTR movie plot, with some scenes repeated in Anime.
This plot could have been better with a realistic plot centered around Helm Hammerhead, but having him portrayed as a good but flawed character, with Hera as his able assistant or doing side quests . Maybe even romance somewhere? That would have been believable and a great story. Instead we have ANOTHER girl boss movie full of plot holes and an unrealistic and over-powered protagonist who is better than everyone else at every physical and mental challenge. Disappointing!
