Revision Witcher 2019 Available: The Netflix The Witcher is a TV show born of the bitterest thing in marriage. Starring Henry Cavill as the gray-haired monster hunter Geralt de Rivia, is adapted from the fantasy books by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski; however, the Witcher franchise is undoubtedly known to most people through the aftermath of non-canonical video games. This is a whim that infuriates Sapkowski, who never foresaw the success of the games. This is why when he sold the license in the early 00's, he demanded a lump sum instead of a percentage of the profits. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt of 2015, considered by many to be one of the best RPGs ever made, has so far sold 20 million units. There have been legal actions since.

The tension between the legitimacy of the source material and the popularity of video games is something showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich, known for her work on Netflix's Marvel shows, Daredevil and The Defenders, has downplayed. If you are a fan of games, he argues, then there is no reason not to be a fan of the television program that adapts books that inspired games. And that is true. The Witcher issue has nothing to do with the richness of Sapkowski's books, nor the baggage that comes with being associated with a role-playing game. Is that while books put you in the head of Geralt and video games put you in the world of Geralt, neither does the television program. This is due to both an intricate script of discordant pacing and a colorless lead performance by Cavill, often leaving the impression that he is Comic Amb's coolest cosplayer.

Review Witcher 2019 available

Geralt would present a challenge to any actor. In Sapkowski's books, he is presented as a kind of sad wandering ronin: perpetually in search of work, rejected wherever he goes. He is a wizard, a dying breed of killer monsters who. through a series of mutations, superhuman strength and agility have arrived, albeit at the apparent cost of emotions.

On the page, this translates to a loud, silent type with an expressive sense of humor and a surprisingly rich inner life; A sensitive, vulnerable and conflicting man. On screen, however, Cavill struggles to summon some of that depth to the foreground; instead, it appears as monochrome and white. Geralt's fake style doesn't help either. Cavill wears yellow contact lenses, and quite obviously a Legolas-style white wig; he has also been burdened with the unfortunate task of making a hysterical, unnatural deep, guttural voice, which sounds like a LEGO Batman personification. If you had come to The Witcher without knowing about its origins, you would be puzzled as to why anyone would decide to make a television program focused on that character.

However, The Witcher's troubles go far beyond Cavill, who can only work with the material he has given. Problems are soaked in the very bones of adaptation itself.

The first two books in Sapkowski's series, The Last Wish and Sword of Destiny, are structured as a series of storytelling, each with a different monster or problem that Geralt has to overcome (like, for example, the Striga, 1 Baby damn she's become a monstrous teenager). These short stories start off quite independently, but gradually introduce characters and elements that, in future books, become a larger and more complex saga. That is, Jaskier (played by Joey Batey on the show), a bard-slayer who sometimes accompanies Geralt on his adventures; Vengerberg's wife Yennifer (Anya Chalotra), who becomes a turbulent love affair; and Ciri (Freya Allan), a princess with mysterious powers that falls under her protection.

A manic bombardment of the show.

However, this is not the way the program addresses it. Instead, Hissrich chooses to divide each of the eight episodes into three separate stories: the adventures of Geralt; Yennifer's story of origin, and Ciri's escape from his war-torn kingdom of Cintra.

It's a similarly expansive, world-building approach to fantasy storytelling as adopted by Game of Thrones, whose success undoubtedly influenced The Witcher. But Game of Thrones worked because it spent its first season introducing you to Westeros through simple, character-driven storylines (Southern fans are arriving at the nonsense North Village), before expanding its reach. .

Nothing builds in The Witcher. The first two episodes (critics received five out of eight) are a manic bombardment of fantasy slang, locations, and shows that simply are meaningless without context. Here is a particularly lively exchange:

"I saw the Morhogg Wraiths on the canal this morning ... They are an omen of war."

"The north has been at war since Nilfgaard took Ebbing. If the legend is true, the years of Wild Hunt behind the curve"

"Nilfgardian force crossed Amell"

"Head to Sodden if they're smart. And if not, 50 of your Skelligen ships are on their way.

This is a show that already wants to be a hit in the style of Game of Thrones; he hopes that if he tells you enough times that this is a great layered fantasy world with kingdoms and characters that you care about, then you will begin to believe it. This impatience to get to the top of the scene is why The Witcher can often hear two shows happening at once: the one-man monster week episode adventure and the great fantasy set epic.

What this means in practice is that the first episodes tend to have a strange, atrophied, and staccato rhythm. The pilot, for example, cuts every five minutes between the dense fantasy politics of the Cintra war with the invading empire Nilfgaard; and the story of Geralt arriving at a small town called Blaviken, where he is embroiled in a fight between wizard Stregobor (Lars Mikkelsen) and warrior princess Renfri (Emma Appleton). Both threads have little room to breathe: the characters speak in wide exposure, no one is developed enough to really invest, and apparently a kiss springs from nowhere.

This does not mean that the series does not show any spark of potential. Episode 3, focusing on the aforementioned Striga, is closer The first five episodes of The Witcher become a compelling mystery, with Geralt tasked with investigating a real scandal to raise a curse, and true horror. . Simply take the picture of the tall, dark skeletal form of the Striga, lurking around its abandoned gothic castle, making its way to Geralt, dragging its umbilical cord to the floor (damn baby, remember?). Or the fight that follows, which is as brutal and horrible as it is stylish and stylish. A feat that may be attributed to Game of Thrones director Alik Sakharov, who is responsible for maintaining the program's Lovecraftian aesthetic.

It is no accident that The Witcher finally begins to accelerate in its fifth hour, with the first encounter between Geralt and Yennifer by Anya Chalotra - an episode that not only combines two stories, but also gives Cavill l opportunity to recover someone with whom his character really has chemistry, to do more with Geralt than just growl. Yennifer is one of the most engaging parts of The Witcher; This is largely due to the young British star Chalotra.

Unlike the books, where we meet Yennifer the first time Geralt encounters her, the adaptation deepens in a dismissable line about her being born hunchback. And so we explored her journey from being a poor farmer, being sold by a father to a witch for less than a pork, to harnessing her magic skills to some kind of Gothic version of Hogwarts, be in the unreliable spell of Geralt's Dreams / Nightmares.

This Yennifer story is not without its problems. A sequence in which he has his magically "fixed" disability, for example, before entering a ball as a radiant view of conventional attractiveness, is burdened by deaf tones of tone. And the character's frequent toplessness is evidence that, despite being adapted by a female showrunner, The Witcher certainly has not attenuated the freest cornice elements in Sapkowski's books. But regardless, Chalotra sells everything: tragedy, naivety, charisma, confidence and power.

It's a shame that the rest of the adaptation can't get up to meet her.