A heroic figure in a man bun is running around grunting and creating a scene. No, this isn't a flash-forward of Hozier's death-metal phase. It's series two of The Witcher (Netflix, streaming from today), in which Henry Cavill portrays a lone swordsman with glowing eyes and limited conversational skills.
When the first season arrived, in the prepandemic Arcadia of late 2019, all the chatter was about whether it would replace the huge hole left by the recently departed Game of Thrones. Little could anyone have predicted that this zeitgeist-shaped void would be filled by Succession – which echoes Thrones’ themes of backstabbing, performative sweariness and weird sibling chemistry.
The Witcher was quickly revealed to be something else: an all-action romp in which Cavill’s character, Geralt of Rivia, spent his screen time dashing about beheading monsters.
Heroic fantasy lives or dies by the quality of its fight scenes. And, with Netflix's billions to draw on, The Witcher delivers one climactic face-off after the other
The good news is that series two continues in that vein, with Geralt displaying an ongoing commitment to chopping up as many CGI beasties in as short a time as possible. The even better news is that Netflix has sorted out the dreadful pacing issues that sucked so much fun out of the show (adapted from the novels by Andrzej Sapkowski but with a wink towards the popular Witcher video games).
The Witcher’s first season was spread across three timelines, bringing us the origin tales of Geralt, sorceress Yennefer and princess Ciri. But the script didn’t make it sufficiently clear that these events were separated by decades. And, though Cavill was full value as the bludgeoning beastmaster, the plot was sometimes contorted to the point where it was impossible to work out what was happening.
The Witcher now limits itself to two, easily digestible storylines. In the north, Geralt is bringing Ciri to Kaer Morhen, the mountain fortress of the Witcher order of monster hunters. Hundreds of kilometres away, Yennefer, her magical energies drained on the battlefield, must come to terms with life as a wizard who can’t cast spells.
Heroic fantasy lives or dies by the quality of its fight scenes. And, with Netflix’s billions to draw on, The Witcher delivers one climactic face-off after the other. In one breathtaking early sequence Geralt tangles with a creepy vampire drawn from Central European folklore. Later he wrestles a weaponised version of one of Tolkien’s Ents.
Cavill was an excellent Superman who received a raw deal in the terrible dialogue that the director Zack Snyder was writing for him. He’s in his element as Geralt, communicating winning qualities of huffiness and melancholy as this lonely warrior. Freya Allan’s Ciri and Anya Chalotra’s Yennefer are just as compelling, and it is clear this is as much their story as it is Geralt’s.
The Witcher lacks the courtly skulduggery that was such a crucial feature of Game of Thrones (and is a component of Amazon’s The Wheel of Time adaptation). But it’s nonetheless a full-force caper, brimming with action, adventure and twisting, tentacled nasties. Here is a sword-and-sorcery saga that swings wildly yet hits the target.
