Even if I'm not the target audience for a film, it's always nice to see a long-suffering franchise get a new installment that finally gets it right. "Dungeons & Dragons" has had a lot of ups and downs over the years, including a regrettable live action feature in the year 2000. But now, here comes "Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves," which has several "D&D" nerds among its creators, and it shows. I can't speak to whether they got all the details right, but this certainly feels like stepping into a rich, storied fantasy world that runs by its own set of rules. At the same time, the movie is pretty accessible for "D&D" newbies who have no idea what paladins or tieflings are, and just want to watch a band of adventurers go on an exciting quest together.
The movie does something that's not as easy as it looks, which is to balance earnest character drama and relationships with humor and silliness. The silliness is inevitable when you've got characters like Edgin (Chris Pine), a bard and thief who spends the opening act of the movie trying to talk his way out of prison, and his best friend Holga (Michelle Rodriquez), a stoic barbarian warrior who gets the best fight scenes. The two of them spend most of the movie trying to find a way to infiltrate the Kingdom of Neverwinter, currently controlled by Edgin and Holga's scummy former partner Forge (Hugh Grant) and the scary wizard Sofina (Daisy Head), who betrayed them on a previous job. Forge has also adopted Edgin's daughter Kira (Chloe Coleman), and is lying to her about her father's motives. Fortunately, Edgin and Holga have some promising allies, including a bumbling sorcerer named Simon (Justice Smith), a shapeshifter druid named Doric (Sophia Lillis), and a too-good-to-be-true paladin named Xenk (Rege-Jean Page).
Once we get into the fantasy hijinks, the movie is a lot of fun. The writers manage the trick of engineering an enjoyable adventure while also getting to quip and comment on that adventure, and also not making the meta elements too obnoxious. By the end of the movie, I was surprised to find that I really cared about Edgin and Kira reconciling, Holga's love life, and Simon's progress as a sorcerer. The actors do a lot of the heavy lifting, with Chris Pine turning up the charm, Michelle Rodriguez being very lovable, and Hugh Grant in "Paddington 2" villain mode. The only trouble is that it takes a while for the movie to get to the hijinks. There's a ton of exposition to set up the world, constant explanations of terms and items, and an awful lot of important characters to juggle. D&D fans should have a ball picking out references and cameos, but I suspect younger viewers will need some patience to get through all the talky scenes.
I thought the wait was worth it, for some genuinely clever action sequences, solid humor, and satisfying payoffs. I like that the movie plays with our expectations, putting laughs where we don't anticipate them, and letting setups that initially seem comedic be played straight. This isn't the most impressive looking fantasy universe from a production standpoint, but clearly a lot of care and attention went into the worldbuilding. Many of the fantasy creatures and environments are created with practical costumes, for instance, which give them a nice throwback quality. Some of the trickier effects don't come across well, like trying to have regular sized humans play hobbit-sized characters, but otherwise the visuals are very appealing. There's a thin line between kitsch and the kind of generic medieval fantasy aesthetics that "D&D" has always used, and I think the filmmakers figured out a pretty good approach.
It's unfortunate that the movie doesn't seem to be doing too well at the box office, because this is one of the better fantasy action films I've seen in a while, with a very appealing take on some very old tropes. On the other hand, "Honor Among Thieves" is for the fans more than the general audiences, and was probably destined from the start to be best loved by existing D&D players and receptive fantasy nerds. And maybe that is how it should be.
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