DUNGEONS & DRAGONS: HONOR AMONG THIEVES

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, Paramount Pictures

Follow on Facebook | Follow on Twitter | Become a Patron

Review by Mark Dujsik | March 30, 2023

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is smart to only skirt the line of parody. Taking material like this too seriously would likely result in yet another disposable piece of big-budget fantasy pastiche, and leaning too much into the silliness would prevent us from actually seeing the elements the filmmakers take just seriously enough. This film gets to have its fun, while also convincing us that its world and characters have some underlying value beyond the potential for humor. Co-writers/directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein strike just the right tone here, and that goes a long way.

This world and the broad outlines of these characters, of course, come from the nearly 50-year-old role-playing game of the same name, known mostly as a cliché about nerds and for the weird panic circa the 1980s about its supposed connection to the occult. To get into the particulars of the game, its history, and its cultural impact would take too long, if this critic even knew or cared about those things in the first place.

Such a description would also be irrelevant, except to note the general notion that it is supposed to be a game and be fun and allow for some degree of imagination on the part of the participants. In those respects, too, the filmmakers seem to get it right.

The plot revolves around, well, a lot of basic notions, such as quests to find things and a sense of general adventure, and specific items, such as wizard staffs and a magical helmet and a metal tablet that can resurrect one dead individual. One imagines that such objects, as well as the assorted creatures and monsters that stand in the way of our heroes finding those things and accomplishing their goals, are part of the deep lore of the game, but the screenplay, written by the directors and Michael Gilio, doesn't care to spend too much or, really, any time digging into such matters. They're just here as a jumping-off point for some amusing fun involving a string of likeable characters.

Indeed, the whole idea of any kind of back story is gently mocked in the film's prologue, which sees convicted thieves Edgin (Chris Pine) and Holga (Michelle Rodriguez) locked up in a towering prison in the middle of a frozen wasteland. They're to appear before the fantastical realm's equivalent of a parole board to state their case for early release, and as Edgin goes through his tragic back story involving his time as a spy and the murder of his wife at the hands of wizards and how Holga helped him to raise his daughter, he's basically just stalling, awaiting the arrival of a board member whose appearance will guarantee that the duo get out of prison.

There's a long synopsis possible here, which would discuss how and why the two are betrayed by former thieving teammate Forge (Hugh Grant), how that group of red wizards and their apparent leader Sofina (Daisy Head) have a wicked scheme to turn the world into brain-dead zombies, and just how many things our heroes have to find and places to which they have to go for assorted reasons. A shorter one is probably more productive and more in line with flippant attitude the filmmakers show toward all of that exposition and plotting.

Basically, Edgin and Holga have to rescue his daughter Kira (Chloe Coleman) and retrieve a Tablet of Awakening from Forge (along with other riches in the villain's vault), so that Edgin can resurrect his dead wife and have the family life he abandoned by becoming a thief. For help, they enlist the aid of Simon (Justice Smith), a low-level sorcerer whose showcase of tricks includes a bit in which he generates the smell of freshly cut grass, and Doric (Sophia Lillis), a shape-shifting druid who's in it for freedom for her people. Holga insists they'll split Doric's share of the loot among the less idealistic members.

One could detail how Edgin's plan leads the crew to a graveyard, where they momentarily resurrect fallen soldiers to ask five questions of them, and a cavern guarded by a dragon, as well as how the quest leads them to meet the charmingly literal Xenk (Regé-Jean Page). It's better to say the bit with the resurrected corpses is deviously funny, especially when those corpses don't want to be left hanging in limbo because of a missed question or two and when the rules of what constitutes a question are pretty strict, and the encounter in the dragon-guarded dungeon has a few solid gags—involving a structurally unsound bridge and an elaborate puzzle to cross it, as well as the dragon itself, which has lived too idle a life to do much more than crawl and roll in chase.

The whole film, really, has a dry, sarcastic demeanor that's consistently amusing, without overwhelming the characters, the action, or the more straightforward jokes. More to the point, though, the cast is clearly having a good time, playing characters who aren't simply giving us the same type of humor over and over again.

Pine is the sardonic but fundamentally sincere leader, and Rodriguez's character is tough in her physicality and her blunt honesty. Smith gets the self-deprecating bits as a struggling wizard, and Page steals the scenes of his brief stint as a seemingly ideal hero. Lillis and Grant are somewhat underutilized, although the shape-shifter is more for the spectacle, including a faux one-take of an infiltration mission, and Grant's foe is appropriately slimy.

The film is fun and funny. That's mainly due to the work of the cast, who give us characters worth caring about even as they joke their way through this adventure, but Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is generally playful in a way that catches one off guard.

Back to Home

Buy Related Products