Dungeons & Dragons, or “D&D” for brevity’s sake, isn’t a game I grew up playing. I had no idea how it was even played, I simply knew it as one of the few pillars of nerd culture that I hadn’t delved into quite yet. I then played it once in high school and immediately gained the utmost respect for those that play it regularly, especially as a dungeon master, or “DM”. The amount of creativity needed to lead a fun campaign is just something I lack and something I admire in others.
When I saw the trailers for Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, directed by John Francis Daley and Jonathan M. Goldstein, I was excited to be presented with the opportunity to connect with this game that I had appreciated from a distance for so long. That is if it was good, of course. After seeing the movie, I want to play more than ever. It seems as authentic to the game as it can be without sacrificing its ability to still be a high quality fantasy film.
This movie does a whole lot correct, and only a few things wrong. Something it gets right from the get-go is the overall tone. It’s clear from the start that they aren’t taking it too seriously, nor should they. Based on my limited experience playing, watching people play online, and what I’ve heard from others, any D&D campaign worth its salt is full of levity and light-heartedness with a few moments of intensity sprinkled in. Making this a Lord of the Rings reboot wouldn’t have captured the feeling of a game of D&D nearly as well as they did with the project we were given.
As great of a job as the creators did giving this the proper tone, it would not be possible without the right cast. Every character here was cast perfectly. They each bring exactly what they need to the table. Chris Pine is as charismatic as can be with some of the funniest line deliveries I’ve seen this year. He’s also the strongest actor when it comes to any of the serious moments. I was expecting him to be great in this role, though.
The rest of the cast is where I was surprised. The weakest performance of anyone with more than one or two lines was Michelle Rodriguez, and she wasn’t bad at all, she simply wasn’t that great. Everybody else acts as well as humanly possible with what they were given, and what they’re given is usually good, but when it’s not, it’s the downfall of the movie.
The writing here, especially at the end, can be lackluster. It’s not often throughout the majority of the movie that the writing is an issue, and when it is it’s an inconsequential joke or scene, nothing too serious. Although one of the later scenes where a character, who will remain unnamed, is about to die, is written so horrendously that it made me squirm in my seat with secondhand embarrassment and cringe. It’s like they made an AI watch every scene from a fantasy movie where a character is about to die and told the AI to write a scene like that. The dialogue, editing, acting, and just about everything else in that moment is as cliche as it can be. It’s unfortunate that it’s so late in the movie because it’s so bad it almost makes you forget how much fun you just had for the last 2 hours.
Outside of that, there’s very little to dislike about Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. It’s not the best looking movie out there, but it’s certainly a positive. There’s a few interesting cinematography choices made throughout, including a really cool tracking shot of one of the characters while they’re escaping a full castle of soldiers. The fight choreography ranges from pretty good to absolutely stellar. There are multiple moments where you can’t help but marvel at how cool what that character just did really was.
Final Thoughts
Once you get a little space from the aforementioned embarrassing scene and you remember the rest of the movie, you’re going to be very happy you watched it. The tagline that the studio has gone with, “No Experience Necessary”, is a very fitting one. As a casual fan of D&D, I didn’t feel left out of anything for not knowing enough, but I think I would’ve enjoyed my time just as much if I’d never even heard of the game. If you absolutely despise fantasy films, then sure, you should probably skip this one, but if there’s even a small part of you that might enjoy them, check this out.
