The Witcher: Sirenas de las profundidades

I had high hopes for this. Thinking back on the damage they've done to The Witcher IP, this was naive. I re-read the short story that gives the movie its inspiration, and found myself, again, in awe of Sapokski's writing and characterization. In my opinion, it's one of Sapkowski's best short stories. Now, I don't want to be one of those people who harps on about an adaptation not being faithful to the original, but Netflix had so much to work with here. Sapkowski's writing is full of nuance and depth and pathos - everything this adaptation is lacking. The movie goes for cheap, surface-level fantasy action and vandalizes the unique creative depth and character-work that makes Sapkowski's writing, at its best, exceptional. At its best, Netflix has been able to capture some of this - I think back to Renfri from the first episode of The Witcher. But in large part, Netflix has failed to capture what makes the IP special. This is just the latest example.

I understand the reservations people have with The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf - which I really liked, but that isn't the case -, but this production is by far a worst production than that animation. I wish I could brush it off by saying "what else could you expect from the same two writers that also wrote the Netflix series?" however this was proved wrong with the before mentioned animation, also written by one of the writers of the show - even though Beau DeMayo wrote another great show in the X-Men '97 adaptation - or maybe he is an exception and it is not wrong to assume that re-hiring writers from the Netflix series is a bad idea.

However, something is clear, even for the people that have not read the books, you can clearly tell what comes from the books (Sword of Destiny) and what was adapted from Netflix writers. There is even this part from the books that shows how witty Essi in their investigation, but she was robbed to create a "cool scene".

Overall, this adaptation of the short story "A Little Sacrifice" does way more harm than Vesemir's prequel did.

As a side note, why is the voice acting from Essi so weird?

To be honest, I feel disappointed... I was waiting for this movie for months, hoping for something that would truly capture the essence of The Witcher, but it turned out to be mediocre at best.

The Japanese anime style, -excessive backflips and triple flips especially- just doesn't feel like our Geralt.

Another issue for me was the blonde girl's voice acting. She spoke way too fast and mumbled at times.

That said, the return of Doug Cockle as Geralt's voice was a highlight. Hearing the iconic voice from the games brought some nostalgia and familiarity, but unfortunately, it wasn't enough to save the movie.

Christina wren's English accent is just dreadful. It's like she's just watched Oliver Twist over again to try and capture a cockney accent but butchers it completely. Why they didn't just hire someone with an English accent is beyond me.

Storyline is boring.

Action is good.

Besides Wren, voice acting is good. Interesting to get a bit of background on dandelion. Don't know why they made him a giant pussy though.

There's some mad similarities to this story and the little mermaid which is hilarious.

I can't tell you how bad the accent is. It's literally making me want to lower my rating more.

I haven't read the books, but I've watched anything Witcher related out there and I'm a big fan of the games. Although the fighting scenes with Geralt are perfect and entertaining, I feel like the entire thing lacked the emotion I'm used to with the games. The music in the background was barely audible, which took away a lot of the tension and feeling it usually creates. What you can hear the most is the sword slashing and voice acting (including breathing and whatnot), or other times just complete silence (which is usually used to create a certain atmosphere) that seems out of place. The story is pretty predictable and too much Little Mermaid like. The reasoning behind the characters' actions is too simple, in a way that makes you think "that's all there is to it?".

I think it had potential to be something good, even with the story being written as it was, if the rest of it managed to pull your heart into it by creating that Witcher feel. As it stands, it felt a bit disconnected or lacking at times. It was kinda boring because it completely missed the mark to be honest...