Review of “Dungeons And Dragons: Honor Among Thieves”

Making your own fun is the draw of the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons. It is an unparalleled experience to gather your friends, make characters, and go on a journey that is prescribed by your dungeon master. How would that look on a large screen? With a stuffy, corny script that did more to serve as a slave to the lore than to strive to bring what makes the game so unique to life, Dungeons & Dragons (2000) provided an example of how not to adapt such material. In Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, the writers and directors Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley (Game Night) attempt to capture the excitement of the original game in the year 2023. Dungeons and Dragon: Honor Among Thieves portrays the exhilarating pandemonium of a D&D session between friends with vigor, serving up a strong blockbuster in its own right despite its omnipresent comedy, which can occasionally be difficult to handle.

As the plot of Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves: Honor Among Thieves begins, bard Edgin Darvis (Chris Pine), a former member of the noble warrior faction the Harpers, and his barbarian companion Holga Kilgore (Michelle Rodriguez), clumsily manage a daring escape from incarceration. Edgin and Holga assemble a merry band of misfits including the wild magic sorcerer Simon Aumar (Justice Smith) and the tiefling druid Doric in order to recover a secret treasure that will bring Edgin and his estranged daughter Kira (Chloe Coleman) with his departed wife (Sophia Lillis). In addition to Forge Fitzwilliam (Hugh Grant), a former buddy and skilled conman, and the evil Red Wizard Sofina (Daisy Head), they also run into the obviously noble but enigmatic paladin Xenk Yendar (Regé-Jean Page).

The script of Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is likely to be the main source of contention for most viewers. The screenplay by Jonathan Goldstein, John Francis Daley, and Michael Gilio is rife with wry humor. There are too many jokes, but there are just as many that hit the mark as there are that don’t. There are numerous “well, that just occurred” moments where a character will make a pointless remark about how absurd a circumstance is, which breaks the tension.

If it weren’t for the cast from the video game, the extensive use of Dungeons & Dragons lore might leave viewers perplexed. There are two universal truths about contemporary film: Chris Pine will always be endearing, and Michelle Rodriguez will always be a badass. The cycle won’t be broken by Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. In addition, Justice Smith’s awkward sorcerer Simon is hilarious, and Sophia Lillis’s eccentric shapeshifter poses a threat to steal the show entirely. You have a cast that is simple to follow into combat when you add in a smarmy Hugh Grant, fearsome Daisy Head, and a strange (in all the right ways) Regé-Jean Page doing his best NPC (Non-Player Character). Given how enjoyable they make this movie, it’s easy to picture oneself watching a couple more of them.

The writing of Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Dailey can be hit or miss, but they are masters of direction. Action scenes in a contemporary IP-based movie that are this expertly coordinated are just a treat. The first scene is only the appetizer—a staged fight between Michelle Rodriguez and some security personnel. A one-take tracking shot after Daric’s dramatic escape, in which he transforms into a variety of species, including the fan-favorite Owlbear, is a complete showstopper, occurs not that far into the film. That doesn’t even include the aforementioned dragon escape or the dramatic showdown that is so faithful to the strategies used in a real D&D fight that you can almost see the graph paper projected onto the screen. There’s always another thrilling set piece waiting around the corner, even when the pacing and perplexing 134-minute runtime can drag.

The imagination is something that Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves has a lot of. Even though most of the guests are humans, there are still plenty of other animals to admire. Eye pleasure to gawk at includes anthropomorphic hawk people, lizards, “mimic” animals that mimic inanimate objects, panther-like displacer animals that can project a replica of themselves, and did I mention a chubby dragon whose fire breath is reduced to a weak sparking cough? There is always something exciting in the frame thanks to expansive vistas and different inventive uses of magic.

In Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, the quality of the visual effects occasionally falls short of the ambition on display, particularly when it comes to CGI-based effects. Even so, the film’s imaginative creatures feature an astounding number of top-notch practical effects, including animatronics and extensive make-up. When there is that much ambition there, the hitches are hardly noticeable. Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Dailey’s adaptation finds the joy in being transported to a strange new world where magic, monsters, and, of course, dungeons and dragons run amok during a time when so much fantasy may blend together.

Honor in Dungeons & Dragons It’s possible that Among Thieves was just a shady money grab intended to milk the IP for all it’s worth. Instead, it’s a heartfelt homage to the timeless joy of a game that prioritizes the player’s imagination. There is no perfect Dungeons & Dragons campaign—sure, some of the jokes fall flat, the visual effects often fall short of what they aim for, and the tempo may be brutal. Despite its flaws, this is a fantastic illustration of the haphazard storytelling that occurs when friends get together to build a story from the ground up and to take on problems imposed by the route that the Dungeon Master, in this case the screenwriters, laid out for them. Its status as a hugely enjoyable blockbuster packed with character is a bonus, and if it inspires people to start their own Dungeons & Dragons campaigns, then it has succeeded in its goal.

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