We live in an era of franchises. And before we get started here, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is, I'm sure, meant to be a franchise-starter. But the pleasant truth is that the movie, which I just saw, actually manages to work by avoiding some of the pitfalls that the worst of the tentpole big-budget Hollywood fare does these days.
Since 2015, I've been a giant Dungeons & Dragons nerd, running games for my friends and occasionally getting to play in them as well. The game is set to celebrate its 50th anniversary next year, and the success of 2014's 5th Edition of the game's rules has seen it become more popular than ever before, so making another go at a movie was probably a logical step. We're in an age where movie studios are willing to commit to big, nerdy franchises - part of that is a positive, in that these once-sidelined styles of storytelling are getting a chance to have the budgets and wide release that they deserve, but another part is negative, in that a lot of studios simply want to capitalize on viewers' affection for an intellectual property and milk it for all it's worth.
And to be clear, I don't think that this movie isn't trying to do that. But whatever cynical motivations might be behind the executive decisions being made, the actual creative artists behind this movie have managed to make a genuinely fun movie with characters I liked and cared about.
For people who are unfamiliar with D&D, the game is not about any one character or story, or even world, but mainly a set of rules to make a game of telling a story with one's friends. Most players build a heroic fantasy character - a swashbuckling rogue, a nature-worshipping druid, a battle-raging barbarian - and can fill in as many biographical details they want to inform the way that they play the character. One player takes on the role of "Dungeon Master," and weaves these characters' stories into an overall narrative, along with, usually, some supernatural threat that must be faced. The rulebooks include ways in which the players can build their characters, as well monsters that the Dungeon Master can send up against them.
And because there's no singular story for D&D, Honor Among Thieves merely tries (and succeeds) to create the sort of plot you could imagine for a fun, quick "campaign," (the term used to refer to the story you tell with a particular group of characters, played over the course of months or years, typically).
While the movie, rightly, introduces us to new characters with their own original backstories and motivations, the setting is a familiar one. The Forgotten Realms is a world that serves as the "default" setting for D&D, filled with cities of intrigue, various supernatural threats, and a deep history. It is this setting, along with the memorable monsters found in D&D's "Monster Manual" (one of the three core rulebooks that the DM uses to find the creatures the player characters will fight against) that make up the pool from which references can be made.
What is refreshing is that the references never (as far as I can remember) call attention to themselves. D&D veterans will instantly recognize Intellect Devourers, Mimics, Owlbears, and Displacer Beasts, but their function in the movie translates to "weird monsters in a world filled with weird monsters." The references primarily function as easter eggs for those in the know to recognize, but when the villainous wizard vanishes in a hazy mist only to appear elsewhere, the layman can simply think "ok, yes, she's a wizard, and that was some kind of magic thing" while the D&D player knows precisely that this is the spell Misty Step, and knows what level of "spell slot" is expended to cast it.
At no point, I think, would someone who has not played the game feel a need to pause and say "hold on, why are we holding on this particular image or moment? Is this something I'm supposed to recognize?" - which is a trope that I see in a lot of franchise filmmaking (including the MCU, which I think has gotten more egregious with these practices in recent years). The only thing you might find here as a sequel hook is simply the existence of the greater villain who is behind the main villain of the movie, but the film seems content to consider the story complete - its post-credits scene (because those are just going to be a thing) is a joke and not a "now wait for the sequel" teaser.
Naturally, there's a difficult balance to strike with high fantasy, especially in an expansive world like this. It would be tempting to try to show everything, and Honor Among Thieves manages to avoid that temptation.
Structurally, the story works, though there are some plot developments that are fairly telegraphed. I generally prefer a telegraphed plot point over a nonsensical plot development, so I can't complain too much about this.
The casting is fantastic - just about everyone is right for their role. Chris Pine is excellent at putting his charisma to use in selling the fantasy with a movie star charm behind it. Michelle Rodriguez is pitch-perfect casting for the badass warrior. The other main members of the quartet, Justice Smith and Sophia Lillis are also good, though I think are not given as meaty arcs as their older party members (Lillis' tiefling druid, Doric, is one of the most visually exciting elements of the movie, bending the rules to let her endlessly shift between various animal forms, but her arc is left on the backburner).
As a character who is designed to steal the spotlight, Regé Jean-Page's paladin Xenk, thankfully, accomplishes his show-stealing purpose with aplomb, coming in as the far-more-powerful adventurer who helps our group of heroes on their quest while acting infuriatingly righteous and honorbound in a way that makes you and the characters want to hate him, but they can't because he ultimately backs it all up.
Hugh Grant dials up his slimy charms to perfect effect as the villainous Forge, which... could technically be considered a spoiler, but, you know, come on.
I'm going to watch the movie again at some point (in part because a friend who has various health issues felt nervous about watching the movie in a theater with many unmasked people) and I'll see whether my feelings toward the movie change.
Basically, the movie accomplishes exactly what I hoped it would, being a fun, often hilarious adventure.
Perhaps the most refreshing moment in the movie, though, and one that avoids a trope that seems so prevalent nowadays, is a moment in which Chris Pine's Edgin begins playing his lute and singing a song to cheer Michelle Rodriguez' Holga up. It would be so easy in so many popular movies to undercut this with some kind of irony and have everyone hate his singing because, you know, playing the lute and singing is lame, right? Well, here, instead, she starts singing along, and the warmth of their friendship and the value of that kind of creative expression as a way of forming a human connection is embraced without any irony.
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