3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): The Rats: A Witcher Tale

2025, Mairzee Almas (Shadow and Bone) -- Netflix

As of this stub's date (Feb 19) I have been off for a week, and ill most of it. Yesterday was the first day I felt somewhat human. My winter ailments usually involve sinus infections and that always puts my brain & moods out of sorts. One additional effect has been furthering an inability to watch/enjoy much. I literally have four movies in some state of "started". The only things I have been able to complete are TV episodes, which I continue not to write about, and a couple of movie rewatches, only one which I will write about. And this movie, which is more a movie-length episode of The Witcher, which I also watched in fits & starts.

The movie stars some characters from a side-plot in the series, a group of street urchin thieves who call themselves The Rats. In the main show they are seen as a self-aggrandizing bunch of teens/20-sumthins that are more bluster than successful rogues -- admittedly, my own opinion colours that statement. And they all die horribly before the season is out. In fact, this movie picks up right after those deaths and is done as a sort of recollection-tale by the show's scariest villain, a tale that doesn't make a lot of sense considering what he could know and not know, but... well, this show doesn't care.

My whole feeling for this movie, and these characters, makes me feel like an Old Man Yelling at Clouds. I want to dismiss my dislike for the whole setup and their depictions as a "they are not meant for my age-demographic" situation. But the objective pop culture consumer part of my brain, the one which is currently coming back online after weeks of fuzziness, recognizes its just Not Very Good. I highly doubt youth would make me like them/it any more.

I am also struggling with this while watching "Star Trek: Starfleet Academy" in that I am only enjoying it being in the "Star Trek" universe and not really enjoying all these runs at Teen Drama™ that the show is literally built upon. I am not going so far as saying its a terrible show, as much of the Enragement Bait Internet Rhetoric relies on, but I spend a lot of time rolling my eyes. And I don't really like any of the main youthful characters. Holly Hunter as the immortal Captain/School Chancellor... well, she rocks.

So, The Rats. This movie gives us Moar Background on them, primarily for the pack leader Mistle (Christelle Elwin, Death in Paradise) and her vaguely mentioned royal and/or wealthy background. I got the impression from the main show that she ran away from her life of refine, but this movie establishes that her family, and her girlfriend, were killed by the show's Main Bad Guys -- the fascist dresses-all-in-black country of Nilfgaard. It also gives us some connection as to why Mistle fell for Ciri so quickly in the main show, cute blondes and all that.

Anywayz, if you are going to do a show about rogues then it has to be about acts of thievery, so this one's a heist, where in they intend to rob the vault of a fighting ring, one run by the most dangerous & notorious crime gang BUT also more directly organized by a Bad Guy involved in the death of Mistle's family. And there is a monster involved, so they need a Witcher, and happen to find a drunken useless example doing his own play-fighting for coin in a bar, one Brehen (Dolph Lundgren, Aquaman) of the School of the Cat. His Tragic Backstory was that he failed to free King Foltest's daughter from a curse, losing his friend in the act, and Geralt of Rivia had to get involved. Blah blah, he's a self-pitying drunk. But they convince him to join them on the heist and ... ouch, I hurt myself rolling my eyes again... they all become a fast family.

Insert training montage after training montage.

Apparently this movie was cobbled together from the failed attempt to spin off a side-series. And it shows. Its rushed and empty of any real heart. Sure, they actually accomplish the heist, stealing a goodly sum of coin (but are broke again by the time they enter the main show, months later... losers) but losing Brehen in the attempt, and garnering the ire of the biggest, baddest villain the show has had in all its seasons, literally the only thing that compelled me -- one Leo Bonhart (Sharlto Coply, Elysium), a scarily effective and nasty killer of people, not monsters, especially enjoying adding to his collection of witcher pendants. He's the teller of the recollection-tale.

Maybe it could have been better, as a series, but I doubt it. Even as a big fan of Generic Fantasy, always enjoying the set dressing of these shows, this has no center. Reminding me of Xena: Warrior Princess which was the template for Terrible Generic Fantasy in terms of empty story telling, uninspired costuming and flat, bright lighting that makes everything look like a sitcom, this show squandered a substantial budget in lieu of terrible quipping and boring "quirky" characters. It looks good in many ways, as money was spent, but as mentioned earlier just doesn't have any heart. The locales, while full of sweeping vistas, don't have any particular feel to them, they just transplant from The Witcher's European forests to a place of stone and sand, but it doesn't feel authentic in any way, just bland, brown and boring.

But, yay (?), I finished it?