Toss A Coin To Netflix’s ‘The Witcher’
Dec. 20 came and with it, the “Rise of Skywalker” went to theaters, but it’s not the only anticipated movie/show that came out that day. “The Witcher”(2019) a new Netflix original directed by Lauren Schmidt that is based on a famous polish book created by The book became popular in the rest of the world due to a game series of the same name that came out after years of development.
The story is of Geralt of Rivia played by superman actor Henry Cavil. Geralt is a witcher, which is a form of a mutated monster hunter that is generally distrusted by people around the world. Along with Cavil, there are actresses Freya Allan, and Anya Chalotor who play Cirilla princess of Cintra, and Yennefer of Vengerberg, and actor Joey Batey who plays Jaskier a bard.
Let’s start first with one of the biggest problems in the show while the show is very pretty in some parts of it it is to say lackluster in others. The one that comes to mind is the Nilfgaards armor which doesn’t do any favors for them as, to say the least, it looks like a three-year-olds made them, and they feel out of place in the world. Another armor suffers this to a small extent such as Geralt’s which at times doesn’t fit the background and looks plasticky during some scenes. The background also leaves something to be desired as it can often look very fake and out of place, but that’s not to say the show is all bad.
With the cinematography crew, it helps bring the fights to life, that life being a superhuman like mutant fighting trained or skilled fighters that appear throughout the series. It also helps show the characters and how they respond to situations, though usually Geralt is the only that really gets into fighting for a lot of the show. The show also benefits from the unique fighting style of witchers from the book where it’s more of a dance than a normal sword fight that is used to confuse the monsters of the world. The uncut nature of the fighting scenes also helps the flow of the fights.
An interesting effect they have decided to use for the show is timeline changing which has caused some minor problems with people understanding the show. The show switches between three different timelines until the characters meet each other, but it does not show the time when it switches timelines so the only way to tell is if the subtle hints in the dialogue for a time in the show. The reason for this is because the source material that is being used is a collection of short stories that they had to string together into an overarching story, and while it is something new it can hurt some watcher’s experiences until near the end where it comes together.
There is also the acting which is good it does seem to take a second for some of the actors, and actresses to get into character, but when they do it turns out amazing. The compassion for the show is top-notch also examples that come to mind are Henry Cavil who went out of his way to get the role of Geralt because of his love of the Witcher games and books. Joey Batey who is a singer in a band already when he auditioned and said the reason why he got the role was that he was the only one to know how to play the lute. Batey also decided to make the character his own by taking inspiration from places like the “Office”, and other American comedy so that Jaskier felt more three dimensional.
As the last note on “The Witcher” it seems like most fans liked it too with a 93% from fans on Rotten Tomatoes, the critics, on the other hand, seem to have mixed opinions with its score with them at a 66% on Rotten Tomatoes. The witcher was enjoyable from someone who has played the games and read some of the books before it which isn’t a very common thing to happen, and for new people getting into it it may be a rough start, but the end seems that in all likelihood it will be enjoyable 9/10.
