This post contains spoilers for Netflix's "The Witcher."
"The Witcher" might be undergoing some major changes with its third season, but you didn't think the show would be without some deranged eldritch beasts, did you? Netflix's Henry Cavill-led fantasy drama is bidding adieu to its star, who'll soon be replaced by Liam Hemsworth in the role of Geralt of Rivia in season 4. Meanwhile, Ciri (Freya Allan) will face her biggest choice yet as part of season 3, volume 2, in an event that's sure to fundamentally change the child of Elder Blood going forward. In fact, Ciri will be the main character in "The Witcher" after season 3, according to executive producers Steve Gaub and Tomek Baginsk.
With all these changes going on, you might expect the writers to be focused more on story and setting up season 4, but this is still "The Witcher," and you can't have "The Witcher" without some good old-fashioned monster hunting.
"The Witcher" might be undergoing some major changes with its third season, but you didn't think the show would be without some deranged eldritch beasts, did you? Netflix's Henry Cavill-led fantasy drama is bidding adieu to its star, who'll soon be replaced by Liam Hemsworth in the role of Geralt of Rivia in season 4. Meanwhile, Ciri (Freya Allan) will face her biggest choice yet as part of season 3, volume 2, in an event that's sure to fundamentally change the child of Elder Blood going forward. In fact, Ciri will be the main character in "The Witcher" after season 3, according to executive producers Steve Gaub and Tomek Baginsk.
With all these changes going on, you might expect the writers to be focused more on story and setting up season 4, but this is still "The Witcher," and you can't have "The Witcher" without some good old-fashioned monster hunting.
- 7/31/2023
- by Joe Roberts
- Slash Film
Lots of things set “The Witcher” apart from television shows dabbling in fantasy and magic. What else but “The Witcher” would tell you that the location of castle Kaer Morhen is a closely guarded secret that frustrates spies across the realm, and then immediately invites over a tavern full of women, from seemingly next door, for some sexy times, and then interrupt those by turning a man into a tree-beast? But there’s something more fundamental separating “The Witcher” from other fantasy series. The Netflix show, set on a place simply called “The Continent,” is one with no map; and therefore, really, no end.
In direct contrast to, say, the “Game of Thrones” opening credits’ insistence on getting us to know who lives where, “The Witcher” doesn’t offer viewers any understanding of where Cintra is in relation to Nilfgaard, or how big The North is, or how far it is from Oxenfurt to Sodden.
In direct contrast to, say, the “Game of Thrones” opening credits’ insistence on getting us to know who lives where, “The Witcher” doesn’t offer viewers any understanding of where Cintra is in relation to Nilfgaard, or how big The North is, or how far it is from Oxenfurt to Sodden.
- 12/20/2021
- by Sarah Shachat
- Indiewire
Opens
Friday, Jan. 16
"Along Came Polly" might be a lame, formulaic comedy, but it sets up entertaining sequences cleverly designed for the talents of three of its stars and has the good sense to get out of the way and let audiences enjoy their performances. Writer-director John Hamburg, who penned roles for Ben Stiller in the past, notably "Meet the Parents" and "Zoolander", again crafts a character -- a compulsive, vulnerable anal-retentive urbanite -- that is not just up Stiller's alley but up that alley, into the elevator and smack dab in the New York apartment where his Reuben Feffer lives. Similarly, Jennifer Aniston gets to play a free-spirited bohemian cheerfully out of touch with anything approaching normalcy and Hank Azaria is handed one of those foreign-accented nuts from which he can extract delirious comedy.
All this should be enough for favorable though perhaps modest boxoffice returns for Universal in mid-January. The film too often takes a clumsy approach to its comedy, overstating the obvious, running gags into the ground and stranding such talents as Philip Seymour Hoffman, Alec Baldwin and Bryan Brown with annoying, one-note characters. Throw in running gags about gastro-intestinal distress and a blind ferret, and you've got a movie that sets its comedy bar too low for the talents involved.
Reuben's profession and lifestyle are interchangeable. A risk assessor for an insurance firm, he spends his life minimizing all risk. So when he marries Lisa (Debra Messing), a woman selected by him and his computer software as the perfect mate, why are you not surprised that on the first day of his honeymoon on St. Bart's he discovers Lisa with a French scuba instructor (Azaria) deep sea diving on dry land?
Returning to New York alone, jilted and rejected, Reuben gets dragged to an art opening by his impossibly gross best friend, has-been actor Sandy Lyle (Hoffman). Here, Reuben meets grade school friend Polly Prince (Aniston), a rolling stone who likes to live life on the edge. As quickly as you can say "opposites attract," these two wind up in the sack, and Hamburg sets his own virtually risk-free course to a happy ending through dates at restaurants that serve spicy food to upset Reuben's delicate stomach, a salsa club to display his physical ineptitude and the sudden return of Reuben's wife to disrupt the budding romance.
Sequences in which Stiller deals with his gastro-intestinal anguish, awkwardly learns salsa steps from smooth Javier (Jsu Garcia) and lectures Polly on the germs in a bar's communal nut bowl are classic Stiller. Aniston's take-life-as-it-comes waitress is funny without turning into a parody. Essentially, she is a woman who ascribes her romantic failures to lifestyle preferences rather than poor relationship choices.
The remaining characters fall just shy of grotesque buffoons. Even Hoffman, who has rapidly become the character actor of choice for many directors, cannot find anything funny in the loser who is Reuben's best friend. Why would a risk assessor risk terminal embarrassment by showing up anywhere with such a personality? Ditto for Baldwin as Reuben's crude boss, Messing as the blushing bride who turns into a whore at the drop of a beach bum's drawers and Michele Lee and Bob Dishy as Reuben's parents, caricatures that only pay off in the final scene. Brown, in his first Hollywood film in a decade, gets stuck with a Richard Branson-like, risk-taking entrepreneur who is an insurance company's worst nightmare.
In his second outing as a director -- he helmed the Sundance film "Safe Men" -- Hamburg surrounds himself with a veteran crew including cinematographer Seamus McGarvey, designer Andrew Laws, costumer Cindy Evans and composer Theodore Shapiro, all of whom help him to deliver a slick package.
ALONG CAME POLLY
Universal Pictures
Jersey Films
Credits:
Writer-director: John Hamburg
Producers: Danny DeVito, Michael Shamberg, Stacey Sher
Executive producers: Jane Bartelme, Dan Levine
Director of photography: Seamus McGarvey
Production designer: Andrew Laws
Music: Theodore Shapiro
Costume designer: Cindy Evans
Editors: William Kerr, Nick Moore
Cast:
Reuben: Ben Stiller
Polly: Jennifer Aniston
Sandy: Philip Seymour Hoffman
Lisa: Debra Messing
Stan: Alec Baldwin
Leland: Bryan Brown
Javier: Jsu Garcia
Vivian: Michele Lee
Irving: Bob Dishy
Scuba instructor: Hank Azaria
Running time -- 90 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
Friday, Jan. 16
"Along Came Polly" might be a lame, formulaic comedy, but it sets up entertaining sequences cleverly designed for the talents of three of its stars and has the good sense to get out of the way and let audiences enjoy their performances. Writer-director John Hamburg, who penned roles for Ben Stiller in the past, notably "Meet the Parents" and "Zoolander", again crafts a character -- a compulsive, vulnerable anal-retentive urbanite -- that is not just up Stiller's alley but up that alley, into the elevator and smack dab in the New York apartment where his Reuben Feffer lives. Similarly, Jennifer Aniston gets to play a free-spirited bohemian cheerfully out of touch with anything approaching normalcy and Hank Azaria is handed one of those foreign-accented nuts from which he can extract delirious comedy.
All this should be enough for favorable though perhaps modest boxoffice returns for Universal in mid-January. The film too often takes a clumsy approach to its comedy, overstating the obvious, running gags into the ground and stranding such talents as Philip Seymour Hoffman, Alec Baldwin and Bryan Brown with annoying, one-note characters. Throw in running gags about gastro-intestinal distress and a blind ferret, and you've got a movie that sets its comedy bar too low for the talents involved.
Reuben's profession and lifestyle are interchangeable. A risk assessor for an insurance firm, he spends his life minimizing all risk. So when he marries Lisa (Debra Messing), a woman selected by him and his computer software as the perfect mate, why are you not surprised that on the first day of his honeymoon on St. Bart's he discovers Lisa with a French scuba instructor (Azaria) deep sea diving on dry land?
Returning to New York alone, jilted and rejected, Reuben gets dragged to an art opening by his impossibly gross best friend, has-been actor Sandy Lyle (Hoffman). Here, Reuben meets grade school friend Polly Prince (Aniston), a rolling stone who likes to live life on the edge. As quickly as you can say "opposites attract," these two wind up in the sack, and Hamburg sets his own virtually risk-free course to a happy ending through dates at restaurants that serve spicy food to upset Reuben's delicate stomach, a salsa club to display his physical ineptitude and the sudden return of Reuben's wife to disrupt the budding romance.
Sequences in which Stiller deals with his gastro-intestinal anguish, awkwardly learns salsa steps from smooth Javier (Jsu Garcia) and lectures Polly on the germs in a bar's communal nut bowl are classic Stiller. Aniston's take-life-as-it-comes waitress is funny without turning into a parody. Essentially, she is a woman who ascribes her romantic failures to lifestyle preferences rather than poor relationship choices.
The remaining characters fall just shy of grotesque buffoons. Even Hoffman, who has rapidly become the character actor of choice for many directors, cannot find anything funny in the loser who is Reuben's best friend. Why would a risk assessor risk terminal embarrassment by showing up anywhere with such a personality? Ditto for Baldwin as Reuben's crude boss, Messing as the blushing bride who turns into a whore at the drop of a beach bum's drawers and Michele Lee and Bob Dishy as Reuben's parents, caricatures that only pay off in the final scene. Brown, in his first Hollywood film in a decade, gets stuck with a Richard Branson-like, risk-taking entrepreneur who is an insurance company's worst nightmare.
In his second outing as a director -- he helmed the Sundance film "Safe Men" -- Hamburg surrounds himself with a veteran crew including cinematographer Seamus McGarvey, designer Andrew Laws, costumer Cindy Evans and composer Theodore Shapiro, all of whom help him to deliver a slick package.
ALONG CAME POLLY
Universal Pictures
Jersey Films
Credits:
Writer-director: John Hamburg
Producers: Danny DeVito, Michael Shamberg, Stacey Sher
Executive producers: Jane Bartelme, Dan Levine
Director of photography: Seamus McGarvey
Production designer: Andrew Laws
Music: Theodore Shapiro
Costume designer: Cindy Evans
Editors: William Kerr, Nick Moore
Cast:
Reuben: Ben Stiller
Polly: Jennifer Aniston
Sandy: Philip Seymour Hoffman
Lisa: Debra Messing
Stan: Alec Baldwin
Leland: Bryan Brown
Javier: Jsu Garcia
Vivian: Michele Lee
Irving: Bob Dishy
Scuba instructor: Hank Azaria
Running time -- 90 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
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