Dungeons & Dragons:
Honour Among Thieves*1
Cert: 12A / 134 mins / Dir. John Francis Daley / Trailer
Six years feels like a long time for a film to be in development in this day and age. When I say 'development', I mean everything after that day in 2017 when the Hasbro exec in charge of D&D watched Jumanji and hollered "GUYS why aren't WE doing that?". Because evidently that happened...
And so it comes to pass; the very archetype of furrow-browed geekdom for half a century stripped of sharp edges and gatekeeping, retooled as a kid-friendly action comedy starring familiar faces from some of the entertainment world's most successful franchises. And, pleasingly, it works very well.
BARD
Chris Pine leads a pack of mythical adventurers as Edgin the bard (one of only two characters to get any significant backstory work), joined by Michelle Rodriguez's Holga the barbarian (she's the other one), Justice Smith's Simon the wizard, and Sophia Lillis' Doric the druid. Together they try to remove the reins of power from Hugh Grant's Forge (a former ally but perennial con-man) and Daisy Head's Sofina the evil wizard. Chloe Coleman also stars as Edgin's teenage daughter with abandonment-issues. Honestly, that girl doesn't have any luck.
All of these performances are fantastic on individual levels*2, although the chemistry between players is lacking somewhat. It's unclear whether this is down to slight miscasting or the challenge of working under two directors. The script, meanwhile, manages to hold the whole thing together, and the film's strength is that its writer/directors have penned this as an action-comedy first and foremost, with the branded tie-in opportunity taking a back seat (Hasbro get their name in the titles, so shifting units from toy shop shelves is down to them now).
The storyline itself is a more standard 'break into the castle / steal the treasure / realise the treasure wasn't the most important thing' affair, which makes up for its shortcomings by deftly spinning the plates of showcasing its characters. While the movie certainly borrows tonally from both its parent-franchise and the wider genre, there are relatively few nods to the mechanics of roleplaying games themselves. But at the height of Act III we do get what initially appears to be a blink-and-you'll-miss-it reference to the iconic 1980s cartoon iteration*3, although this is hammered home a little more firmly in the following minutes to ensure value for money.
CHAT GPT
At its funniest when it really leans into its gags (the extended necromancy scene is delightfully inspired), for all D&D's throwaway quality it's not without a few moments of meta-smartness. A particular favourite comes in the second act where it's suddenly crystal clear than Hugh Grant is playing his slimy, boisterous con-man by doing a 100% impersonation of Boris Johnson, and perhaps because the directors hadn't twigged what he was doing (and because this works for the part anyway), it stayed in the film untouched.
Of course there's a finale to be had, and Honour Among Thieves gets messy in places, not least when it tries to raise its dramatic intensity. Coincidentally, that's also when the film is at its most ordinary as a popcorn-flick. Naturally it will hold the door open for sequels, but providing they expand upon this world rather than just rehashing gags, there's the potential for real greatness in the future.
Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves is good. In some places it's almost great. But the elusive Epic Quality™ needed to elevate fantasy films to all-timers is just out of reach here.
Decent work though, lads.
Now do Gauntlet...
*1 Okay before anything else, I'd like to add how quietly impressed I am at the UK distributors Entertainment One rebranding this with the British spelling of Honour for the United Kingdom promo materials. Because that means there's been a meeting about it pretty high up, and a grammar pedant has absolutely lost their shit until they got their way, and I am here for that.
[ BACK ]
*2 Genuine credit to Californian actor Justice Smith, whose movie-long British Accent™ is admirably close enough to work for the majority of viewers, but just subliminally wrong enough to be distractingly off-kilter to vocal nit-pickers like myself. [ BACK ]
*3 Spoilers, highlight-to-read: Seriously though, I thought that the cartoon reference was going to be Sofina attaching the red-wizard's horn onto one side of her shaved head to channel Venger and attain ultimate power. Alas not. Shame. [/ENDS] [ BACK ]
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• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
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