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Rated: 3/5 • Sep 21, 2021. Rated: B- • Sep 4, 2021. The world of The Witcher expands in this anime origin story: Before Geralt, there was his mentor Vesemir -- a swashbuckling young witcher ...
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All told, Nightmare of the Wolf is a welcome addition to the...
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- The Witcher's first foray into anime spends too much time building up the live-action show.
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- Which upcoming The Witcher Netflix project are you most excited to see?
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By Samantha Nelson
Updated: Aug 17, 2021 1:06 am
Posted: Aug 16, 2021 3:25 pm
The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf will debut on Netflix on Aug. 23.
A prequel to The Witcher Season 1 that also sets up characters and events that will be important to Season 2 of the Netflix show, The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf is torn between the franchise’s future and its past. While it’s filled with lore and character building that might please dedicated fans, the split focus keeps the animated film from feeling like a story that can really stand on its own.
Nightmare of the Wolf follows Geralt of Rivia’s mentor and surrogate father Vesemir, who is voiced by Divergent’s Theo James (but will be played by Killing Eve’s Kim Bodnia in The Witcher Season 2). The young Vesemir couldn’t be more different than the White Wolf, a carefree rake who loves showing off, mixing witty banter with swordplay and then regaling ladies with tales of his adventures. James feels like he’s channeling Nathan Fillion’s swaggering Hal Jordan as he exudes a carefree charm, but there’s more than a little cruelty beneath it when he’s dealing with those he doubts have the strength or will to survive the harsh fantasy world of Andrzej Sapkowski’s books.
IGN's Matt Purslow gave Season 1 of The Witcher a 6.5. While he praised Henry Cavill as a perfect live-action Geralt of Rivia, he called the first season "unconventional and messy." "It’s failed by its convoluted structure, which ultimately restricts character growth, and prevents the show from having any true sense of depth," he added.
Vesemir’s path from a lowly servant to a professional monster slayer is told in flashbacks, and writer Beau DeMayo uses the same storytelling trick he helped employ as a writer on The Witcher Season 1, playing with expectations of how much time has passed between scenes based on how slowly Witchers age. The technique is cleverly used here, but DeMayo and director Kwang Il Han are a little too fond of misdirection in a story that tries to deliver plenty of twists but winds up being pretty predictable.
Like many prequels, Nightmare of the Wolf suffers from a feeling of inevitability. The film is very similar to Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, with two factions that feel threatened and desperate moving closer to direct confrontation. It’s in everyone’s best interest for cooler heads to prevail, but if you know much about the series, it’s clear early on that things aren’t going to work out so smoothly.
Like in Avengers: Age of Ultron, the movie tries to stuff in too many nods to characters and conflicts that will be important later. Some plots, like a scathing indictment of the genocidal war against the elves and other Elder Races, still at least add to the narrative of the film they’re in. The name dropping of major characters appearing in Season 2 of the Netflix show adds little beyond a shallow attempt at hype building.
Where Nightmare of the Wolf does shine is the animation, which allows for storytelling that would be impractical even with the live-action show’s impressive budget. There are some excellent fight sequences that really capture the sword and sorcery roots of The Witcher. Some are riffs on things previously done in the series, like a dizzying fight with portals, but others feel like genuinely novel ways to mix spells, alchemy, and weapons that seem like they come from a deep place of affection for and knowledge of the source material.
The film takes a more is more approach to its action, which doesn’t always work. It’s exciting seeing Vesemir or his own mentor Deglan (Graham McTavish) taking on one or two fierce and wily monsters, but having multiple armies and swarms of creatures in the climax turns the affair into a ludicrous chaotic spectacle that feels more akin to an Avengers film or Lord of the Rings than The Witcher’s grittier tone. For all the carnage, the film’s nature as a prequel takes away many of the stakes if this isn’t your first experience with the Witcher.
The Witcher Season 2
The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf
The Witcher: Blood Origin
But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have an emotional impact. Kaer Morhan is gorgeous in its full glory, but it’s also a place of nightmares. The sequence showing Vesemir and his fellow recruits undergoing the Trial of the Grasses, the alchemical process that gives the witchers who survive their superhuman abilities, is the film’s most visceral. That’s saying something, since it also includes a spider-like monster crawling out of a woman and the gory dismemberment of multiple children. It provides new lore involving the fate of Kaer Morhan and the origins of monsters, which is sure to intrigue some fans, but is also a little heavy-handed in getting across the idea that man is the greatest monster of them all.
The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf isn’t a bad film, but it fundamentally lacks an identity of its own. It’s a fine way to spend 80 minutes if you want to pick up some fresh lore and get to meet a very different Vesemir than the one we’re likely to see in Season 2, but it probably won’t get anyone new to the franchise to stick around, or even convi...
Review scoring
okay
The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf spends too much time building up the Netflix show and not enough telling its own story.
Samantha Nelson
Jul 9, 2021 · The Witcher Comes Back for the Holidays. Settling what feels like years of wonder, Netflix announced the second season of The Witcher will debut December 17, 2021. According to executive producer by Lauren Schmidt Hissrich, the story will focus on Geralt ( Henry Cavill) becoming a father figure to Ciri ( Freya Allan ).
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 100% of 27 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.1/10. The website's consensus reads: "Focusing on the adventures of a strapping young Vesemir, Nightmare of the Wolf is a fluidly animated addendum to the Witcher story that will delight fans with its swashbuckling action."
- Brian D'Oliveira
- Lauren Schmidt Hissrich
- August 23, 2021
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Aug 20, 2021 · Release date: Aug. 23 (Netflix) Cast: Theo James, Lara Pulver, Graham McTavish, Mary McDonnell. Director: Kwang Il Han. Screenwriter: Beau DeMayo, based on the book series The Witcher by Andrzej ...
Aug 25, 2021 · The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf is a striking 81 minute character study wrapped in mayhem and magic. Like all good animated stories, it uses bright colors, fluid movement and excellent scoring to showcase its worldbuilding and a cast of characters with quirks and unexpected complexity.
