Escaping from poverty to become a witcher, Vesemir slays monsters for coin and glory, but when a new menace rises, he must face the demons of his past.
Released: 2021-08-23
Runtime: 83 minutes
Genre: Action, Animation, Fantasy
Stars: Theo James, Lara Pulver, Graham McTavish, Mary McDonnell, David Errigo Jr., Jennifer Hale, Tom Canton, Matthew Yang King, Luke Youngblood, Michaela Dietz, Keith Ferguson, Adam Croasdell, Jennie Kwan, Kari Wahlgren, A.J. LoCascio, Darryl Kurylo, Nolan North, Harry Hissrich, Ry Chase, Samia Mounts, Steve Blum, Dee Bradley Baker, Sara Cravens, JP Karliak, Fred Tatasciore, Abby Trott, Andrew Morgado, Courtenay Taylor
Director: Han Kwang-il
Comments
SallyWilliams - 22 July 2023 Quite Entertaining ! Just ignore the usual "Lore Whining" It was an interesting story with a variety of interesting monsters, and good voice acting. It's the entertainment value that counts, NOT the lore, the books, the game. Filmmakers want to create their own visions and don't have to retell everything from some source material. Marvel and DC also present many different variations and the viewers like it, and don't care what was written in the comics back then. The main witcher character was even more entertaining than Geralt. His personality was more likeable than the always moody and grumpy one. But... to each his own. I enjoyed it, just like Blood Origins.
skyrimrocks-24847 - 29 May 2022 Not bad. Not great. Sorta fun The story was nice and the action nice until the last 30 minutes. Just sort of messed with too much to the point of unreasonable. Too much for an hour and a half movie. Especially since there is only one character in the movie we care about. Yet it feels others are too much in the spotlight. Wouldn't recommend unless you love the Witcher universe and aren't a purist.
talaskabartosz-98401 - 4 January 2022 Surprised how good it was Daaaamn, I did not expect such a good watch. Dubbing is amazing, story and designs are even better. I even think it's better than Netflix Watcher series!
orgrinrt - 2 December 2021 This would have worked much better if it wasn't based on an established character I'm a recent convert to Sapkowski's universe. By which I mean that just this autumn, I started reading The Last Wish and ultimately ended up consuming 5 books in a few months; the two short story collections up to Baptism of Fire. I'm currently reading the Eye of the World so that I can watch the amazon show, but right after that I'm looking to finish the witcher saga.
I really like this universe. It's actually fairly counter-intuitive, since it's not all that original when you think about it. The short stories started off heavily referencing common tropes or well established stories and putting a twist on them.
Then it evolved and while The Blood of Elves was a slow read and ultimately not very eventful, it really picks off afterwards and things get larger in scale and impact.
Now, with this well-liked book series as the base for these modern adaptations (the games, the netflix show and now this), it's very easy to take the already established characters and tell their stories or expand on them.
The trouble is, they are already established. Choose that path, and you don't have much wiggle room if you're telling stories from a period that is at least somehow documented already. I feel like this is one such case.
Though I haven't finished the book series and I expect I might learn new things that make some of the things here less out of place, it still feels a bit... off?
The story itself, the animation, the visuals -- it's all very beautifully done and if nothing else, entertaining.
I can't help but feel that if they just told this exact story from an entirely different POV, this would have stuck so much better.
I get the temptation to tell Vesemir's story -- he's a liked character, especially so now that the third game came out and people who haven't read the books would also recognize and like the character.
But even acknowledging that, this entry is indeed entertaining and looks awesome. I'm not a big fan of animations, but for me, this really works because I know the world and thematically it really fits the universe. The story itself, if we disregard the characters involved, seems entirely on brand for the world and what we've seen in the books, for example. At least that's how I feel, but then again I haven't finished the book series yet, so that that as you will.
It was fun and exciting to watch, so I'll give it a 7. A lot of that is probably just the universe, that I'm presently consuming and loving, inflating the number, but that's sort of the point of making this in the first place, no?
I already played Thronebreaker after Baptism of Fire to get Meve's POV, even if not canon, and I'm looking forward to playing the main game series after I've read all the books.
This was a fun little journey along that path that I did like, so I would recommend anyone in similar position to do the same, if you're so tempted.