ALZUR’S LEGACY: A Fan Film from the World of The Witcher

Theoretically, there was no better time to premiere the fan film Alzur’s Legacy than a few weeks before the official launch of The Witcher on Netflix. Many people awaited this moment with impatience—including myself—ever since I first heard about the project. Imagine my surprise when the $30k production, despite its grand announcements, turned out to be a flop that might have fared better in other hands.

The plot of Alzur’s Legacy unfolds after the events of the final novel about the witcher Geralt. We witness an assault on the Kaer Morhen fortress, where the last group of witchers is slaughtered.

Only one of them—Lambert—manages to survive. Many years later, he joins forces with the sorceress Triss Merigold and Jaskier’s illegitimate son to defeat the super-warrior Agaius, who led the raid on Kaer Morhen, and to capture the sorceress Ornella, who has come into possession of the legendary Book of Alzur.

What stands out most is that Alzur’s Legacy is truly a fan-made production for fans. Unfortunately, only for them. Viewers who are not intimately familiar with Andrzej Sapkowski’s work or CD Projekt RED’s games may struggle to catch the countless easter eggs and references. I myself am no expert in the witcher world, so half the screening was utterly incomprehensible to me, even though I know the main threads of the cult saga. It is clear that the creators focused solely on telling a story that is not universal but deeply rooted in Sapkowski’s world. Therefore, for someone new to it, the viewing will be significantly more difficult.

It is hard to judge the film outright. On one hand, it is a fan product and theoretically should not be held to the standards of multi-million-dollar productions.

On the other hand, it was made by a professional film crew and features actors whose debuts are long behind them. The end result is extremely weak, even if we accept that the film aims only to be better than the already notorious series starring Michał Żebrowski. But few things can be worse than that series. In Alzur’s Legacy there are many elements that work—and unfortunately many more that fail completely on screen.

Source: Altao.pl

Setting aside the deluge of opaque references, one cannot ignore the script’s technical shortcomings.

Some lines were so overwrought that I wondered who thought it was a good idea to include them. Perhaps over these four years the writers might have refined how certain characters speak and reconsidered the necessity of some subplots.

I believe the whole would have worked much better as a standalone story introducing Sapkowski’s world. The aforementioned biggest problem—the difficulty of understanding it outside the circle of fans (who themselves may miss various nods lifted even from the games)—and the visible script gaps are one thing, but the lack of a coherent narrative is another. We are simply thrown into the middle of the action, knowing nothing about the characters or events, which only further confounds the viewer.

Source: Altao.pl

Additionally, we unfortunately have to contend with poor acting, despite the cast not being composed solely of amateurs. One might have expected both Mariusz Drężek and Zbigniew Zamachowski to perform at least decently.

Instead, it is quite the opposite. Every time Drężek, playing the last witcher Lambert, uttered another curse, I felt he was about to finish someone off with a witcher’s spin. His lines come across as unnatural and so forced that I had the impression the actor himself did not know what to do on set. Meanwhile, Zamachowski’s Jaskier is a complete caricature of the (apparently) beloved character, who thankfully appears for no more than five minutes of screen time.

The actress portraying Triss Merigold fares very poorly. Her interactions with other characters reveal that Magdalena Różańska is utterly unsuited to roles beyond her usual television fare. She seems as though she is on a film set for the very first time.

Yet there are also bright spots, such as Julian Marcina Bubółka, who to me is a cosmic figure eliciting a wry smile of pity from start to finish. The best-written character, however, turns out to be the village mayor. I would gladly watch a spin-off with him, as he represents untapped potential. Andrzej Strzelecki excels in the role, once again proving his considerable comedic talent.

Source: Altao.pl

That the creators had to contend with budgetary constraints is evident from the very beginning.

Although the outdoor shots and locations look really good and intriguing, everything else on the technical side is weak. I looked forward to the fight scenes and was greatly disappointed. And yes, I know most people will say It is a fan film, after all; what more do you expect? Yet precisely for that reason I expect more from the creators. I have seen many examples of how good fight choreography can be achieved on a small budget.

Here it is lacking, making the duels unremarkable and, consequently, unengaging. The final confrontation left no impression on me, and I was far more curious about what happened to Julian than who would win—because that was obvious from the start.

Also among this production’s flaws are the poor special effects, which for some reason the creators insist on at every turn. With so limited a budget, perhaps they should have focused on the elements that constitute the work’s strength rather than forcing in jarring CGI—let alone the post-credits monster, which genuinely terrified me with its shoddy execution.

The editing is also problematic, which is odd given the professional crew behind it. I thought I would see nothing worse than the infamous Bohemian Rhapsody concert scene, but the makers of Alzur’s Legacy prove that one can do it just as badly. I assumed that with such experienced filmmakers, we would not have to fear these basic missteps, even if it is a fan production.

Unfortunately, this is not a successful work. No matter how much I wish otherwise, the whole appears weak, showing that even a brilliant source material does not guarantee a good film. The production will please the ultra-fans living in the witcher world, while for everyone else it will be a largely inscrutable tale with characters we cannot relate to and references completely opaque to those unfamiliar with Sapkowski’s work.