1 Month After Netflix Silently Released a Canceled ‘Witcher’ Spin-Off Starring Dolph Lundgren, It’s a Global Streaming Hit

The Rats: A Witcher Tale was originally intended to be a prequel series to The Witcher, but instead was reworked into an 82-minute TV movie when things started to head south for the franchise. There was even a point when no one believed that the resulting movie would even be released, as Netflix had seemingly canceled the entire project and it had not been heard of in recent months other than potentially being absorbed into Season 4. For that reason, many people seem to have been unaware The Rats was even made available, but despite its appearance on the chart, it is certainly not proving to be a crowd-pleaser.

The Rats: A Witcher Tale is directed by Mairzee Almas and features a cast that includes Christelle Elwin, Ben Radcliffe, Fabian McCallum, Aggy K. Adams, Connor Crawford, Juliette Alexandra, Dolph Lundgren, Ben Robson, Sharlto Copley, and Freya Allan. It comes with the synopsis:

“To pull off a daring heist, a gang of six misfit outlaws will have to do something they’ve never done before: trust each other — and a washed-up Witcher.”

Is ‘The Rats: A Witcher Tale’ Worth Watching on Netflix?

Netflix

The stealthy addition of The Rats to Netflix’s platform has resulted in just one critic actually reviewing it. That review, from Kate Sánchez of But Why Tho? A Geek Community is surprisingly positive, and definitely goes against the grain of audience opinions. That review reads:

“The Rats: A Witcher’s Tale is a testament to why we need longer seasons, which prestige television series and streamers have generally abandoned.”

However, audiences have been as brutal as you would expect given the discourse over the series in the last couple of years, scoring it just 21% on the Rotten Tomatoes Popcornmeter. While the film clearly suffers from being truncated from a series to a one-off special, that is only the beginning of its problems. Several reviews label it “unwatchable,” slamming the writing, the acting, and the “parade of “strong women” that is a shallow caricature that cheapens feminism rather than elevates it.”

Others claim that The Rats “abandons any attempt to stick with the source material,” and this results in a general feeling that “unless you are 12, this is just generic fantasy slop” that “looks and feels like a bad Dungeons & Dragons fan fiction.” The one shining light in the entire project seems to be the presence of Dolph Lundgren, whose appearance as Brehen is one of the few points of praise The Rats is left clinging to.

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Release Date

December 20, 2019

Network

Netflix

Showrunner

Lauren Schmidt Hissrich

Directors

Stephen Surjik, Charlotte Brändström, Edward Bazalgette, Loni Peristere, Louise Hooper, Bola Ogun, Alex Garcia Lopez, Gandja Monteiro, Sarah O’Gorman

Writers

Haily Hall, Clare Higgins, Javier Grillo-Marxuach, Jenny Klein, Tania Lotia

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  Anya Chalotra

  Yennefer of Vengerberg