Screen adaptations of video games are awful. All of them. The reverse is also true. Movies do not make good video games, and video games do not make good movies / TV. Usually they’re embarrassingly bad. The world is better off forgetting the Doom movie (starring The Rock) as well as the movie adap...
Screen adaptations of video games are awful. All of them. The reverse is also true. Movies do not make good video games, and video games do not make good movies / TV. Usually they’re embarrassingly bad. The world is better off forgetting the Doom movie (starring The Rock) as well as the movie adaptations of Max Payne, Hitman, Bloodrayne, Tomb Raider and far too many others to list here. Most of them were low quality, painfully awkward, soulless cash-grabs. A handful managed to ascend to the lofty heights of mediocrity by making the brave decision to use the video game source material sparingly and focus on an original story. And therein lay the first glimmer of hope, because that isn’t a problem when you’re talking about The Witcher: it started out as a book.
My verdict up front: watch The Witcher. Its only real flaw is a slightly confusing plot structure which becomes clarified by the end of the second episode. The acting is very good, but not quite excellent. The same can be said of special effects, and the writing. The practical effects are excellent, demonstrating (again) that CGI is no substitute for filming a real effect made by a craftsman. For once my review is spoiler free. Proceed at will.
The Witcher is a Polish franchise that began life as a series of successful novels which were subsequently adapted into a series of video games. The games are heavily story driven with enough cinematic sequences to almost qualify as movies in their own right. They were also extremely well reviewed by critics, insanely popular with fans, and generated massive piles of money; A screen adaptation was inevitable. And while Netflix does have an impressive catalogue of high-quality original series, they were also responsible for an ocean of low- quality filler content, and a lot of fan-service pandering.
For the first twenty minutes of the first episode that’s what I was afraid had happened. But by the end of the episode I knew I’d been wrong. The show is quite good. If Carnival Row, The Boys and The Expanse were all A++, then The Witcher is an A-. Not quite in the same league, but still great.
The series is composed of three separate storylines which eventually merge into two, and then down to one. What isn’t obvious right at the beginning is these storylines are also different time periods, which may confuse newcomers to the series. Also, each episode is both self-contained and part of a larger arc, so it can be enjoyed on two levels. The stories are drawn primarily from the books rather than the games, with elements of the games thrown in like highlights in a good haircut. It’s also very much a series for grownups with enough adult content to make it an obvious M rating. But then again, so were the books and the games.
The world is well constructed with a texture that is certainly familiar, but which never feels ripped off. The plot never wanders, bogs down, or preaches. It’s also complex enough to be very interesting but doesn’t require a flow chart to follow. The three series leads are all well written and well performed. They’re easy to identify with, morally complex, and decisive, with individual arcs that intersect without becoming codependent. The action is very good, and the dialogue is tight and clever. The CGI is good enough, but not great; this show doesn’t have an HBO budget.
And while we’re on that subject; I’ve heard some people accuse The Witcher of being a low budget Game of Thrones. It isn’t. There are similarities because they’re both sword-and-sorcery fantasy series, but there the similarities end. Beyond the fact that many of the stories in The Witcher are self-contained, the show just has a different flavor to it. Its central theme is about being a powerful freak that people are only willing to tolerate of necessity; the very things that frighten the common people about the lead characters are the same things they need them for. The exact kind of hypocrisy you see directed at criminal defense lawyers in the real world. The Witcher also takes a serious look at racism, xenophobia, and religious zealotry. And while it certainly condemns these things, it also takes the time to examine how they come to be. The Witcher doesn’t cheaply or unnecessarily demonize its villains. It makes a point of acknowledging that the worst kinds of monsters are those who are deluded into believing that they’re doing good, and it makes a solid case for neutrality as the best or least destructive course of action.
GoT did have a lot to say about sexism and the corruptive influence of power, but it was focused on telling a story rather than making a point. And while GoT ranks among the best series ever made, The Witcher actually does a better job of weaving in a message. Though it would only be fair to point out that this is, perhaps, out of necessity; when you don’t have $8,000,000 per episode to spend, you’re forced to focus more on developing the characters. There are also far fewer of them, and so you spend more time with each. This series is worth the episode and a half that you’ll need to really get into it, and then it’ll pull in with its own gravity and you’ll be glad that it did. And remember, this is a notable first. The Witcher is a book, a video game and a show…and they’re all good.