{"id":2125013,"date":"2025-10-30T16:04:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T16:04:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2125013"},"modified":"2025-10-30T16:04:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T16:04:11","slug":"the-witcher-season-4-review-liam-hemsworth-isnt-the-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/the-witcher-season-4-review-liam-hemsworth-isnt-the-problem\/","title":{"rendered":"The Witcher season 4 review: Liam Hemsworth isn\u2019t the problem"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\n
\n

Let\u2019s just get this out of the way: Liam Hemsworth actually makes for a pretty solid Geralt of Rivia. Hemsworth assumes the mantle<\/a> in the fourth season of Netflix\u2019s The Witcher<\/em>, picking up from Henry Cavill. And while it can be distracting at first, especially since Cavill inhabited the role so well, it only took a few episodes before I was mostly on board with the new face under the blonde wig. He still knows how to wield a sword, and he still answers most questions with a cranky \u201cfuck.\u201d The problem isn\u2019t that the show has a new lead actor; it\u2019s that it continues to be a bloated mess, and season 4 doesn\u2019t do anything to fix that.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

In case you\u2019ve forgotten \u2014 I certainly had \u2014 despite getting off to a promising start<\/a>, in season 3 Cavill\u2019s Geralt literally limped across the finish line<\/a> as the show set about once again separating its three main characters. At the outset of the new season, a bruised and bloodied Geralt is leading a ragtag group, including his old friend Jaskier (Joey Batey), on a quest to find and rescue his surrogate daughter Ciri (Freya Allan). Ciri, meanwhile, was magically whisked away to a far-off desert, and she\u2019s now living in secret with a band of fun-loving thieves, while a false version of her sits on a throne that Geralt is heading toward. Meanwhile, Yennefer (Anya Chalotra) is leading her own group, trying to rally support among her fellow mages for a showdown with the show\u2019s current big bad, a supremely powerful wizard named Vilgefortz (Mahesh Jadu).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Image: Netflix<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Did you get all of that? It can be a lot. And listen, I know fantasy epics can get complex, and it\u2019s not like The Witcher<\/em> is meant to be a simple story. But the show has steadily been shifting its focus since season 2<\/a>, moving to tell a bigger, Continent-wide story rather than focusing on its core trio of leads. And through that it has been losing what makes The Witcher<\/em> so interesting and distinct in the first place. At this point you really have to squint to find what makes this different from the glut of existing fantasy shows.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

When it\u2019s at its best, the drawn-out wars and political machinations in The Witcher<\/em> serve as background. They\u2019re important, but far from the most important thing. The Witcher<\/em> \u2014 and this is true whether we\u2019re talking about the show, books, or games \u2014 is like a dark fantasy detective series, with Geralt traveling from place to place to slay monsters and inevitably getting unwillingly pulled into some sort of drama, usually of the very fucked-up variety. It provides a ground-level view of a broken world that\u2019s often absent from fantasy. More importantly, it\u2019s fun<\/em>; violent and sexy, balancing tragedy and terror with a dry sense of humor.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

But as those background elements \u2014 the political maneuvering of various countries, the logistics of war, the never-ending games of deception played by the royal elite \u2014 have moved to the front, the show has become something else. It\u2019s bloated and, more often than not, boring.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\"A<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Image: Netflix<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Season 4 does have some rare bright spots. There are two great new characters \u2014 a disturbingly efficient bounty hunter named Leo (Sharlto Copley) and Laurence Fishburne as a mysterious herbalist with a dark past \u2014 and in one clever episode where Geralt and friends sit around a campfire telling tales of their early lives, each story is told in a different form, ranging from a musical to animated bloodfest. But the new characters are underutilized, and while the campfire episode is a welcome diversion, it\u2019s not enough to cover the rest of the season, which is mostly people wandering around on a quest or planning for a big heist or battle.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

The current state of the show is especially frustrating because The Witcher<\/em> can be an absolute blast. The first season of the Netflix series proved this<\/a>, and earlier this year the streamer released an excellent animated film called Sirens of the Deep<\/em><\/a> that returned to those core fundamentals. It was sad, funny, exciting, and \u2014 just as important \u2014 filled with lots of cool monsters. Almost all of those elements are missing from or in short supply in the most recent season, which buries it all under generic fantasy storytelling. It starts out with new-Geralt slicing through a giant creature, and it all goes downhill from there.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Maybe the reason that Hemsworth\u2019s take on Geralt hasn\u2019t bothered me so much is that this version of the character isn\u2019t all that important anymore. He\u2019s still there, occasionally killing monsters, but he\u2019s no longer at the center of this story. With its plan to turn its version of The Witcher<\/em> into an expansive franchise complete with prequels<\/a>, Netflix has relegated the best parts of the series to the background. And that\u2019s not something you can blame on Liam Hemsworth.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Season 4 of <\/em>The Witcher is streaming now.<\/em><\/sub><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Follow topics and authors<\/strong> from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.<\/span><\/p>\n